Evaluating Writing Tasks of Grade Nine English Textbook

Abstract

Here in Ethiopia, as in elsewhere, textbooks are important factors in English language teaching programs. Making judgments about component parts of these textbooks needs systematic textbook evaluation. Despite the great use of these textbooks, it is little or not yet known to what extent the contents and presentation of lessons, for instance, writing tasks were practical based of criteria of textbook evaluation. The main objectives of the present study was to investigate the writing tasks in the Grade 9 English for Ethiopia textbook based on a set of criteria of textbook evaluation and thereby find out current perspectives on the part of the respective teachers and students. The study is descriptive and it employed three sets of data collection tools; namely, content analysis of the writing tasks in the Grade 9 English for Ethiopia, interview with teachers and questionnaire to grade 9 students currently learning at Hawassa Tabour Secondary and Preparatory School. The results in this regard indicated that the Grade 9 English for Ethiopia textbook demonstrated favorably all the defining qualities that a centrally prepared textbook should be compose of; that is, the textbook studied is practically organized, relevant, adequate and appropriate to the language teaching program in operation. Moreover, it was found that the current textbooks are not against the practical attributes or criteria for evaluating textbooks. However, they argued that attributes as regards capacity of learners‟ were not given appropriate attention. Furthermore, it was disclosed that the textbook encompasses favorable trend favorable towards making use of the writing tasks both for developing writing skills and improve their English language use.