An Evaluation of English textbook “Vision ۳”: Based on an Eclectic Checklist

Textbooks are vital source of linguistic input in foreign language context, which guide teachers to set course objectives and provide learners’ psychological requirements. Textbook evaluation is an applied linguistic process which inevitably includes value judgment and subjective analysis. At this point, evaluating merits and demerits of textbooks is an essential skill for teachers. To this regard, this paper attempts to evaluate Vision ۳ from the Vision Book series published by Ministry of Education in Iran. It is a pre-use, context-free, macro, and micro evaluation by using checklist method. The checklist represented in this paper is an eclectic checklist designed by the evaluators from different references like Cunningsworth (۱۹۹۵), McGrath (۲۰۰۲), and McDonough et.al. (۲۰۱۳). Data Analysis, which involves; design, language content, subject matter, and practical considerations, embodies vision ۳ as a big step in English materials development. This evaluation shows that Vision ۳ represents English in an Iranian context with noticeable emphasis on reading and writing. In contrast, it lacks sufficient and challenging listening and speaking activities among four basic skills. Due to subjective nature of checklist, this textbook evaluation has its own potential limitations in materials evaluation process.