An evaluation of sunshine, 4th grade English textbook from the teachers' perspective: The sample of Diyarbakir city

This study aimed to evaluate Sunshine, 4th Grade English Coursebook from the teachers' perspective in the sample of Diyarbakır city. It was conducted in the state primary schools located in the District of Kayapınar in Diyarbakır. The participants of this descriptive study were 102 teachers who were using the coursebook or had used it at any time of their career. In the study, a "Coursebook Evaluation Questionnaire" consisting of 53 Likert scale questions under 6 categories and 4 open-ended questions were used to gather data about the coursebook. The questionnaire that was developed by the researchers revealed attitudes of the English teachers towards the coursebook in terms of the categories composed of general appearance, organisation, supporting materials, aims, topic contents, linguistic contents, skills, activities and exercises. The data collection was carried out by the researcher in the spring term of 2016-2017 academic year. The quantitative data, obtained from the administration of the questionnaire, were analysed by using SPSS. The descriptive analyses including frequencies, percentages, standard deviations, and mean scores of the questionnaire reflecting the attitudes of teachers towards the coursebook were calculated. In addition, in order to determine the statistical methodology to be used to find the significant differences in teachers' opinions on the coursebook with respect to the independent variables, Kolmogrov-Smirnov Z test was used for normal distribution analysis and Levene test was used to determine the homogeneity status of the data. According to the results of these tests, t-test for independent samples in gender variable; One-Way ANOVA for teaching experience and graduation variables; Kruskal Wallis-H test in the teaching in primary school variable were used. In the analysis of the qualitative data obtained from open-ended questions, content analysis was used. In order to analyse the data, the responses from the participants were categorized depending on their similarities, and sub-categories were created from similar ones. In order to support the ideas that were prominent in sub-categories, the responses from the participants were given as they were. The findings of the study revealed that, in general, the teachers were undecided towards Sunshine, 4th Grade English Coursebook, although they sometimes displayed slightly positive attitudes. When the results were considered in detail, it was revealed that some aspects of the coursebook were found to be incomplete, and the teachers had difficulty in having access to some materials. The findings also revealed the suggestions of the participants about what should be done to improve the coursebook. Keywords: Coursebook, materials evaluation, using coursebooks in language teaching, Teaching English as a Foreign Language