The Analysis of Learning Objectives in Iranian Junior High School English Text books based on Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

Ayoub Rahpeyma ,Ali Khoshnood

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.3n.2p.44

Abstract

This study was carried out to evaluate the Iranian junior high school English text books according to learning objectives of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (2001) to find which learning levels of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy were more common in these text books. The primary data in this study came from the newly published English text book, English for Schools series consisting of two three-volume series named Prospect 1, 2 and English book grade three named Right Path to English . Therefore, the data sources were junior high school English text books contents. This study is important as these course books are the first English text books that have been prescribed for Iranian junior high school students to study from 2014. To fulfill the purpose of this study, the contents of junior high school English text books were codified by a coding scheme of BRT. The data were then analyzed; at the first step the frequency and percentage of occurrence of different learning objectives from each book was separately considered and then the average of the whole books were calculated. Results from the codification of 439 tasks and exercises indicated that in three grades, the first three low levels in BRT were the most prevalent than higher learning levels in Iranian junior high school English text books. In addition an important difference was found among the text books in their inclusion of different levels of learning objectives of two dimensions of BRT (knowledge and cognitive). This study can provide useful information for text book development, curriculum writers, and syllabus designers to boost English learning in the EFL setting of Iran. Keywords : Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, Junior high school English text books, Text book

Highlights

English as the international language plays a crucial role in worldwide interactions and relationships
Mosalanejad (2010) studied senior high school and pre university English text books based on Blooms taxonomy and the results of her study indicated that in all grades lower-order cognitive skills were more prevalent than higher order ones
The findings of this study indicate that the third most common code in Junior High School English text books is not from higher order cognitive skills; but it is C1 with a whole percentage of 19.72, which is the most common code in work book grade seven (28.23) and work book grade eight with a frequency of 26.78

Summary

Introduction

English as the international language plays a crucial role in worldwide interactions and relationships. English language education policy has become a major concern of their officials. Educational policy of these authorities has influenced their communities in ways that are often controversial (Khajavi & Abbasian, 2011). According to Chang (2006) English has been the prevailing foreign language in the curricula of educational institutions and in foreign language learning. Many countries welcome instruction of English language in order to be actively engaged in the international activities. The major concerns of such countries have been always to find the ways to extend teaching English language in an effective manner

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Conclusion