Evaluation of the textbook used in the pandemic: From teachers’ and students’ perspectives

Abstract

The textbook has a significant role in language teaching process for both teachers and learners. Therefore, teachers should select it considering the needs of learners, language teaching method or channel. In other words, a textbook might be appropriate for foreign language learners but not for second language learners or a textbook might be very useful for face-to-face teaching but not for online teaching. Therefore, this current study aims to evaluate “Life” textbook series, which was used in an elective preparatory school of a state university in Turkey. It was used through online learning during the pandemic. Since the number of English teachers in the elective preparatory class is less than 20 and the results, in turn, cannot be statistically significant, qualitative analysis was carried out. Furthermore, students’ opinions about the book and its activities were revealed through the parallel questionnaire. Open-ended questions were employed in this study. Data gathered by means of the questionnaires were analyzed via thematic analysis. Based on the gathered data, 3 codes were revealed, which are listed as in the following: strengths, weaknesses and suggestions.