Analysis of german textbook "Plus Deutsch" within the frame of the Common European Framework of reference for languages

The increase in globalization, the development of technology and trade in the Earth has slowly lead to the disappearance of the borders between people. These changes have ensured the disappearance of the obstacles between people who belong to different nationalities and prepared a groundwork for the development of intercultural relations. These developments have been a great factor in the creation of new needs and purposes for foreign languages. In line with these needs, countries have reshaped their perspectives of foreign languages. Within the frame of the new aims and requirements of foreign languages, the Council of Europe has also targeted multilingual and multicultural understanding of new pursuits in language policy. Within the scope of this new conjuncture, the Council of Europe has announced the year 2001 as the year of languages and published the "Common European Framework of Referance for Languages (CEFR)". This framework aims to establish a common groundwork in European countries, in studies like language education, training programs, the program instructions, exam systems and textbooks, etc.. In addition to that, CEFR provides a detailed explanation on the acquisition of skills that are necessary to be able to learn foreign languages efficiently and to use foreign languages effectively in communicative purposes. CEFR defines this acquistions as basic language skills like: listening, speaking, reading and writing. They are also the learning areas that language and mental skills are developed. In accordance to these acquisitions, the activities and practices must be accommodated and these activities must encourage the students to be active. Based on these statements, in order to achieve the acquisitions determined by CEFR, the textbooks must be revised according to the necessary qualifications. In order to not to fall behind in these situation, our country went to new arrangements in the education system in 2006, which are based on CEFR. In the rearranged education system one of the largest changes happened in the foreign language textbooks. The most up to date of these textbooks are, the German Plus Deutsch A1 student and workbook that are used in secondary education of the MEB institutions. The aim of this study is to analyze the Plus Deutsch A1.1 student and workbook with particular focus on activities and practices and measure the compliance with the scales that are determined for 4 basic language skills within the CEFR. The method of the study is, from data collection methods document analysis, which is used in qualitative researches. This study is based on CEFR's language level scales A1, which describes 4 basic language skills. The compliance between the language scales and the both books were determined by individual examination of activities in the books. As a result, although in regards of the CEFR criteria, the student book has some shortcomings, the 4 language skills were determined to be included in the book activities. In workbook however, reading, listening and writing from basic skills were included, while the speaking skill was left out. Based on this result, the Plus Deutsch student and workbook are partially in compliance with the scales that are determined for 4 basic language skills within the frame of CEFR.