Evaluation of the english textbooks used in seventh grades of state schools in terms of learner autonomy

This study aims to show whether the English textbooks used in the seventh grades of state schools in Turkey for the last five years encourage learner autonomy or not. That is ,this study is designed in to order to find out if, and if so, how textbooks provide information and practice in the areas of whether textbooks materials give students opportunities to make their own choices about and how to learn within the book, whether there is a focus for learning styles and strategies and whether there are opportunities for reflection and awareness building .The aspect of the data analysis of the study was course book evaluation. Although various approaches to research are available for researchers to design the most effective research models that cater for their needs, this study was conducted using content analysis method, which is within qualitative research paradigm. This study is about the evaluation of textbooks in secondary schools which consist of sixth, seventh and eighth grade learners in terms of learner autonomy by using a framework. However, analyzing all of them wouldn?t be possible, so textbooks for 7th grade learners were chosen as sample. In order to be able to get reliable information and compare the books, the books for the same grades namely 7th grade were chosen as subject. It was important to evaluate these books used in public schools of Ministry of National Education (MONE) because these books have been used for the last five years in 7th grades of public schools and they are indispensible parts of the lessons throughout the year. Weekly schedules are programmed mostly according to the course books in question, which makes them a core element of learning English in these public schools. Even though learner autonomy has been one of the most disputed and popular subject, there are almost no studies that combine textbook evaluation and learner autonomy. This subject has been ignored by textbook writers , so far. This also makes this study more crucial. In this study, the books chosen were evaluated with a framework developed by Reinders(2010). This framework includes eight stages of self-directed learning process. These stages are iterative. The books were scrutinized by the help of this framework. A distinction was made between the cases where the books provided information about self-directed learning and where they provided opportunities to put them into practice. After evaluating each unit of each book, if a book just mentioned the importance of learning strategies but didn?t give any opportunities for controlled practice, this would be considered as an example of giving ?information? only. If students were given the chance to practice these strategies by the help of different activities, this would be categorized as ?practice?. However, Results proved that such a focus on strategies or other elements of self-directed learning is not at all common in the four textbooks investigated. Out of the eight skills, none of them was covered in these books. These results put forward that teachers should be more careful while choosing a book for the lesson and the textbook writer shouldn?t ignore the term ?autonomy? in their books. Key Words: English Language Teaching, Coursebook Evaluation, Learner autonomy, Materials adaptation, Language textbooks