A corpus-based approach to Turkish EFL textbook evaluation: Single word and four-word bundle frequency

Textbooks play a key role in language classrooms, and their evaluation is of great importance. The evaluation of the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks approved by the Turkish Ministry of National Education and studied in elementary and secondary state schools (4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades) in Turkey is essential as they are in use on a large scale and the primary source for many students. In order to evaluate the spoken language content of those textbooks, a corpus-based approach as an evaluation method was adopted, and a corpus of dialogues in 11 Turkish EFL course books in addition to their workbooks and teacher books was created. Similarly, corpus of dialogues from Touchstone 1, a corpus-based textbook, was also compiled to study the differences between the two corpora regarding whether corpus-based textbooks better reflect authentic spoken language. Using single words and four-word bundles from the first three 1000 bands in the spoken part of the Open American National Corpus (OANC) as a reference list, frequencies and percentages of their use in the textbook corpora were calculated. The results showed that while the EFL textbooks in Turkey cover the words in reference lists at a very low level without a gradual development as the grade levels increase, the Touchstone 1 covers more types and recycles them more effectively compared to the textbooks with corresponding grades, though the difference in formulaic language use was not outstanding.