Abstract:

English language instruction has many important components but the essential constituents to many ESL/EFL classrooms and programs are the course books and instruction materials that are often used by language instructors. As Hutchinson and Torres (1994) suggest the course book is an almost universal element of English language teaching and no teaching-learning situation, it seems, is complete until it has its relevant course book. Through evaluation, we can assess whether the course book is the most appropriate for the target learners at various levels and in various teaching settings.
Various approaches and criteria have been presented for course book evaluation. Sometimes these methods of course book evaluation seem to be contradictory while there might be some commonalities. This article tries to provide a solid analysis of these various approaches to course book evaluation by looking at through the prism of micro level course book evaluation vs. the macro view of course book evaluation. In each of these approaches different layers and stages are considered to contribute some roles in the evaluation. Various components of the course book evaluation process which have been argued in the other models and taxonomies have been subsumed under some overarching categories that make the process of course book evaluation more systematic.
Due to the importance of course book evaluation for administrative, educational, policy making processes and evaluation purposes, we hope that the present article would shed some lights on this concept and elucidate the path towards having a more comprehensive approach for the course book evaluation which would facilitate the pertaining process in turn.

Keywords:

text book, evaluation, tefl, text book components, constraints.