content analysis of prospect series

Today, more and more people are committing time to study english as a second language. many countries include english in their school curriculum. according to barzegar (2013), textbooks play a very crucial role in the realm of language teaching and learning. no one can disclaim the extraordinary advantages that textbooks can provide the teacher and the students when used efl/esl settings. because of the value of textbooks in the teaching and learning process, they should be carefully analyzed for their strengths and weaknesses to be recognized. one of the most significant researches in efl/esl textbook evaluation is content analysis. consequently, this research aims to analyze the content of english language books of the first secondary school based on the components of english language education, from two perspectives: micro and macro; to demonstrate its effectiveness and weaknesses. findings revealed that there had been many flaws in this book: the cover of the book is not impressive and attractive, topics are not selected according to the age of the students and their demands, appropriate images are not used, lack of appropriate vocabularies and phonetic transcription of new words, the name of the characters is in persian, and the time allocated to the book is not enough. despite all these shortcomings, the size and font of the texts are suitable. all four skills are considered, but reading and writing are paid less attention. the findings of the present study may be used as a guide for revising prospect.