Analyzing Reading and Writing Activities of Iranian EFL Textbook Prospect 3 Based on Bloom's Revised Taxonomy

Abstract

Textbook analysis is the systematic analysis of the text materials including the structure, the focus, and special learning objectives. One of the goals for analyzing textbooks is classifying their contents based on educational objectives and standards. This study aimed at evaluating reading and writing activities of the textbook Prospect 3, the textbook used for Iranian Junior High School third graders based on Bloom’s (2001) Revised Taxonomy of Cognitive Domain to decide in which category of lower levels or higher levels of learning objectives these activities are classified. The analysis of the data indicated that reading and writing activities of the book were mostly categorized in the lower levels based on learning objectives of the cognitive domain. Hence, they were not encouraging to develop the activities of high levels of thinking processes such as analyzing, evaluating, and creating among Iranian students. Thus, the teachers should employ supplementary materials to compensate lack of activities related to higher levels of learning objectives and book designers should improve the content of the textbook to include more materials that involve the students cognitively.