EVALUATING IRANIAN HIGH SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS

Abstract

One of the major problems of language learning in Iran is that most of our language learners do not have any clear knowledge about the culture of the people whose language they learn which leads to some sort of misunderstanding. This reveals the fact that as time passes the intercultural communication between this generation of students and the English language communities will become weaker and weaker in future. Their capacity to express themselves in the foreign language fluently after studying English at high school even for six years is not sufficient to communicate in English. It seems that it is partly due to the textbooks used, and partly to the kinds of instruction, procedures, methods and techniques used for teaching English as a foreign language at high schools.
This paper has taken an analytic look at the course objectives and textbooks by careful analyses of the content of high school English textbooks prepared and published by the ministry of education in Iran with special reference to the foreign language culture and comparison of the two cultures.