Textbook Evaluation from EFL Teachers’ Perspective: The Case of Connect Series

Abstract. The current study was an attempt to evaluate Connect series which is widely taught in English language institutes in Iran. Connect series is an EFL textbook in four levels of beginning, high beginning, intermediate, and high intermediate being taught to young adolescents. The purpose of this study was to know the educational value and appropriateness of these course books from the teachers’ perspective. In fact, the main objective of this research was to answer two questions: 1-What are Iranian EFL teachers’ beliefs towards Connect Series’ appropriateness in the Iranian EFL context? 2-What are the strengths of Connect series from the perspective of Iranian EFL teachers? To answer the questions, 67 EFL instructors from different language institutes in Shiraz participated in this study and answered the textbook evaluation checklist developed by Mukundan and Nimehchisalem (2011). Descriptive statistics were carried out to interpret the data. The findings revealed that Iranian EFL teachers generally had a positive perspective towards Connect series. Moreover, it was indicated that Connect series contains a wealth of strength points. Accordingly, the authors recommend Connect series in the EFL context of Iran as an effective textbook serie