An Evaluation of the "English for Iraq" Course for the Fifth Grade Secondary Schools

Abstract

Providing Iraqi students with proficiency in English is the ultimate goal of the educational system which is a way of getting knowledge in the fields of arts, sciences, transferring knowledge and sciences to other communities. Therefore, conducting such a type of study is very important because the contents of English textbooks have a huge influence on learning of the students. Once the content of English textbooks contain errors as the correct one, this will effect on his/her learning. The present study is an attempt to evaluate the new course entitled “English for Iraq” for fifth grade students for secondary schools, by Olivia Johnston and Mark Farell. It aims to answer eleven questions relating to the following domains: strength, objectives, appearance, design and illustration, language components, social and cultural context, accompanying materials, teaching methods, language skills, teachability, and practice and testing. The sample which is randomly chosen consists of (64) English language teachers, Baghdad Al-Rusafa 2nd. A survey checklist employed as an instrument of the present study. The major results showed that English teachers of Baghdad Al-Rusafa 2nd were satisfied with only seven domains of the checklist out of eleven. They are: the general appearance, design and illustration, accompanying materials, social and cultural context, teaching methods, practice and testing, and language components.

Keywords

• Fifth Grade, Evaluation, Teachers.