ELT Materials Evaluation: A Comprehensive Analysis of Mosaic Series Middle East Gold Edition

Abstract

Textbooks play a crucial role in language learning classrooms. The problem is that among the great quantity of available textbooks on the market which one is appropriate for a specific classroom and group of learners. In order to evaluate ELT textbooks, theorists and writers have offered different kinds of evaluative frameworks based on a number of principles and criteria. This study evaluates a series of ELT textbook, namely, Mosaic Series Middle East (Gold) edition using Littlejohn’s (2011) evaluative framework to see what explicit features of the book are, what pedagogic values it has, whether it is in line with its claimed objectives, and what its merits and demerits are. Littlejohn believes that we should evaluate a textbook based on its own pedagogic values and we should see “what is in it†not what teachers and evaluators think must exist in it. Consequently his framework is claimed to be devoid of any impressionistic ideas and it is in-depth and objective rather than subjective. Five ELT experts and five ELT teachers helped the researcher to evaluate the book through rating the evaluative checklists. The results of the study showed that although a number of shortcomings and drawbacks were found in Mosaic Series Middle East (Gold) Edition, it stood up reasonably well to a detailed and in-depth analysis and that its pedagogic values and positive attributes far out-weighed its shortcomings.