Evaluating Four Corners Textbooks in Terms of Cognitive Processes Using Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

This study evaluated 2 ELT textbooks (Four Corners, Book 2 and Four Corners Book 3) drawing on Bloom’s revised taxonomy (BRT); it examined the extent to which these ELT textbooks could demonstrate the 6 cognitive categories of the BRT (i.e., remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating) in their activities. To this end, content analysis was done to obtain the frequency and proportion of various cognitive processes. Results revealed the prevalence of the processes of remembering and understanding in the textbooks. Also, creating process constituted the lowest percentage of processes in both textbooks. Furthermore, the lower-order categories (i.e., remembering, understanding, and applying) were more frequently represented than the higher-order ones (i.e., analyzing, evaluating, and creating). However, the chi-square test did not show a significant difference between Book 2 (a less advanced-level textbook) and Book 3 (a more advanced-level textbook) in terms of the 6 levels of cognitive skills. The results indicate that the above textbooks, much against expectations, fail to engage learners so well in the activities requiring higher levels of cognitive ability, prerequisites of autonomous language learning. By implication, some of the activities in the more advanced-level textbook should be adapted to make learners become more intellectual contributors to their language learning.