A Practical Evaluation of English for Iraq: Pupil's Book (4th Primary): Designing and Planning

Abstract

In 2016, the Directorate of Curriculum and Methodology in the Ministry of Education in Iraq altered the old English textbook allocated for the forth-primary class with a new textbook called English for Iraq: Pupil's Book. After implementing this new textbook, the teachers, who are teaching this material, addressed a set of criticisms stating that the design and structure of this book does not fit the comprehensive levels of the pupils. As teachers emphasized that they encountered difficulties in teaching this material because they should have joined an intensive session for how to teach the new textbook before teaching it in the schools. Investigating the opinions of the teachers about the contents of the book, they believe that the grammatical topics apportioned for the forth grade are beyond the pupils' grasp where the writers set down rules of comparative and superlative degrees which pupils cannot perceive and should be given for the high school classes. Consequently, the teachers are obliged to choose simple and recognized topics and leave the topics – especially grammatical ones which confuse their minds if they are given to them. Thus, the initiative evaluation shows that the textbook contains difficult modules as it lacks practicing the four skills of the English language, in addition to the insufficiency of using the illustrative aids in the classroom.Keywords:  Evaluation, Designing, Structure, Weaknesses, Planning.