Куәлік №16507-Ж. Журнал жылына 4 рет жарыққа шығады (наурыз, маусым, қыркүйек, желтоқсан) иб №15211

95
M.E. Seitova, M.A. Narymbetov
Thinking, Creativity) of 21st Century skills in the 
syllabus.
Research Questions
With respect to the aim of the study stated above, 
the following questions are aimed to be answered:
1. To what extent are the 21st Century skills in-
cluded in ELT coursebooks?
1.1 To what extent are communication skills in-
cluded in ELT coursebooks?
1.2 To what extent is are collaboration skills in-
cluded in ELT coursebooks?
1.3 To what extent are critical thinking skills in-
cluded in ELT coursebooks?
1.4 To what extent are creativity skills included 
in ELT coursebooks?
Literature review
With the incredible advance in information and 
communications technologies (ICT) in the 21st cen-
tury, machines and robots have expanded their capa-
bilities and been able to accomplish tasks done by 
human, which was not the case in the 20th century 
(Dede, 2010:60) [6].
These improvements have a direct influence on 
what skills people were required to have in the 20th 
century and are required to have in the 21st. The ba-
sic knowledge skills; reading, writing and arithme-
tic (3Rs), were regarded as fundamental in the 20th 
century while the applied skills such as collabora-
tion, communication, creativity and critical think-
ing (4Cs) are ‘very important’ to succeed in the 21st 
century.
In the 20th century, being literate, having very 
good reading and writing skills with a great under-
standing of arithmetic could have been enough to 
be successful in life, and thereby schools offered 
more knowledge-based education, focusing on de-
velopment of 3Rs. However, as Rotherdam and 
Willingham (Rotherdam and Willingham,2009:18) 
[7] claim, in today’s world students need 21st cen-
tury skills to be successful in life and schools should 
prepare students for life by incorporating communi-
cation, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking 
skills in their teaching.
As the term ‘21st century skills’ has become 
more of an issue with the developments and chang-
es in ICT in the present era, some educators and 
researchers have discussed what could be done in 
the field of education. Furthermore, some organisa-
tions and institutions have worked in partnership 
to produce a series of research briefs on key as-
pects of conceptualizing, developing and assessing 
the 4Cs of 21st century skills (Mishra & Kereluik, 
2011:3306) [8].
Communication, collaboration, critical thinking 
and creativity skills, the 4Cs of 21
st
century, are not 
only to prepare the students for the real life outside 
the classroom, but also for their immediate learn-
ing within the classroom. Being energetic and tech-
savvy; having a short concentration span, the 21st 
century learners desire their learning to be challeng-
ing, inspiring and collaborative. It might be wiser to 
have a deeper understanding of the information age 
and its requirements, to study the general character-
istics of today’s students and then shape the learning 
environment at schools accordingly. 
As for language teaching, for the past century, 
much has been done to make sure that the quality of 
the methods will help improve the quality of teach-
ing and eventually a supermethod will be developed 
to ensure the efficacy of teaching which, once, was 
considered as the Silent Way, Suggestopedia or the 
Natural Approach for some. In the late twentieth 
century, though, the focus of the super-method was 
on meaning rather than the structural knowledge of 
language, which forms the basis of “communicative 
competence”. When it comes to the 21st century, the 
language classroom is quite different from the one 
employed in mid and the late 20th century. The lan-
guage classroom, then, focused mainly on grammar, 
memorization and learning from rote. On the other 
hand, the 21st century language classroom counts 
on language as a means to communicate intercultur-
ally and globally. As a result of increasing mobility, 
the world is becoming a ‘global village’, which also 
has effects on language education regarding what is 
being taught and how it is taught since the methods, 
approaches and new skills applied and found to be 
successful in a part of the world spread around the 
other parts of the world (Dupuy, 2011:28) [9]. 
Thus, people tend to apply what has been tried 
and approved by some other people to be on the 
safe side while trying something new. As suggest-
ed by Taylor (Taylor,2009:7) [10], EFL classrooms 
should avoid traditional methods and include new 
approaches which incorporate content, culture, 
technology and lifelong skills. Fandiño (Fandi-
ño,2013:200) [11], likewise, claims that students 
should be provided with practices and processes of 
fostering creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, 
self-direction and crosscultural skills in EFL class-
rooms.
Considering some of the studies conducted on 
integrating 21st century skills into English language 
teaching, it can obviously be seen that the impor-

96
An analysis of elt coursebooks in terms of 21
st
century skills
tance of the issue has been realised by some re-
searchers, educators and bodies actively taking part 
in education. However, the fact that teachers are the 
practitioners and facilitators of the systems in the 
classrooms gives higher responsibilities in terms of 
associating their teaching with 21st century skills. 
Despite the fact that teachers should be supported 
by educational policy makers, teacher trainers, ad-
ministrators, researchers and textbook designers and 
be provided with guidance and materials, to ensure 
the best practice of 21st century teaching and learn-
ing, what happens in most cases is that they depend 
on coursebooks to get guidance on what and how to 
teach. From this point of view, it can be inferred that 
coursebooks are influential components of teaching. 
The studies stated above mainly rely on the fact that 
advances in ICT which have changed one’s life rou-
tines and the skills needed to be successful in life 
should be taken into consideration by any parties be-
ing closely associated with education.
The term ‘21st Century Skills’ has become a 
matter of educational discussions due to the fact 
that the advances in the 21st century and the chal-
lenges of the information-age society need to be 
addressed and emphasized, particularly in the field 
of education, to better prepare today’s learners for 
tomorrow. However, before elaborating 21st century 
skills, it would be more sensible to look up what the 
word ‘skill’ actually means. According to European 
Parliament and Council of the European Union’s 
Cedefop glossary (Cedefop, 2008:3782) [12], ‘skill’ 
is defined as “the ability to apply knowledge and use 
know-how to complete tasks and solve problems”.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, on the other hand, 
defines the word ‘skill’ as “the ability to use one’s 
knowledge effectively and readily in execution or 
performance” (www.merriamwebster.com). With 
regards to these two definitions of the word ‘skill’, 
it can be assumed that ‘21st century skills’ refers to 
the ability of using the knowledge and know-how to 
be able to meet the requirements of the 21st century.
The purposes of education should be develop-
ing learners’ core skills and competencies regarding 
the life they are currently going through or will be 
living in the future no matter where they are in the 
world. In order to achieve this purpose, educational 
systems should make sure that students can solve 
real-world problems by applying their knowledge; 
be innovative, creative and productive; make use of 
digital tools for creating new resources, communi-
cation and discovery of new things (Douglas & Has-
sler, 2016:5)[13].
Having stated the advantages, role and impor-
tance of coursebooks in a language programme, the 
decision as to what makes a coursebook more ben-
eficial for a particular language programme and how 
it should be selected and evaluated is another issue 
to be looked at. As Alemi and Mesbah (Alemi and 
Mesbah,2012:65) [14] suggest, the fact that course-
books have a crucial role in language teaching and 
learning brings an utmost importance and necessity 
to the evaluation of coursebooks in a variety of con-
texts to find out the advantages of choosing one over 
the others.
Knowing that many commercial coursebooks 
are available to the use of learners and teachers to-
day, selecting one that fits the learners current and 
future needs by evaluating them based on systematic 
criteria is essential. 
Teaching materials which reflect “the needs of 
the learners and the aims, methods and values of 
the teaching program” have to be carefully select-
ed. While selecting a coursebook which is appro-
priate for the students’ needs, characteristics and 
preferences, one should make sure that the ultimate 
purpose is to motivate the learners and raise their 
language performance. Hence, a need analysis in-
cluding leaners’ level, language need and interest 
can be applied using questionnaires and/or inter-
views. The need analysis would help one to decide 
on what to include in the criteria of evaluation and 
selection. As Ghorbani (Ghorbani, 2011:515) [15] 
claims coursebook evaluation should be based on 
updated criteria since it does not only reflect on 
the appropriateness of the practice, but also on the 
advances and changes in the field of education. 
Therefore, systematic criteria for coursebook eval-
uation that includes the needs of the local context 
should be defined and applied.
However, before coursebook evaluation, ques-
tions related to the role of the coursebook, the teach-
ers and the learners in the programme should be 
overviewed. These questions might cover the fol-
lowings:
▪ Is there a well-developed curriculum which 
describes the objectives, syllabus and content of the 
program or will this be determined by the textbook?
▪ Will the book or textbook series provide the 
core of the program, or is it one of several different 
books that will be used?
▪ Will it be used with small classes or large ones? 
Will learners be expected to buy a workbook as well 
or should the textbook provide all the practice stu-
dents need?
▪ How experienced are the teachers in the pro-
gram and what is their level of training?
▪ Are they native speakers of English? If not, 
how well they speak English?

97
M.E. Seitova, M.A. Narymbetov
▪ Do teachers tend to follow the textbook closely 
or do they use the book simply as a resource?
▪ Do teachers play a part in selecting the books 
they teach from?
▪ Are teachers free to adapt and supplement the 
book?
▪ Is each student required to buy a book?
▪ What do learners typically expect in a text-
book?
▪ Will they use the book in class and at home?
▪ How will they use the book in class? Is it the 
primary source of classroom activities?
▪ How much are they prepared to pay for a book?
On the other hand, the model proposed by 
McDonough and Shaw (McDonough and Shaw 
2003:50) [16] to evaluate ELT materials consists 
of two stages as “external evaluation” and “internal 
evaluation”. The initial stage of evaluation is per-
formed to get a broader sense of the material organi-
zation that the author or publisher explicitly states.
When it comes to the area of comparisons, the 
goal is to introduce in two parts. Part one allows 
the sections presenting comparisons of the students’ 
own language and the foreign language to be locat-
ed, whereas in part two, sections presenting com-
parisons of the students’ own culture and the culture 
of speakers of the foreign language is to be located 
and if there is any, opportunities of comparing cul-
tures are to be explored. For each part, two yes/no 
questions are included for rating.
Lastly, in rating communities, the goal is to 
locate areas in the texts requiring the language be-
yond the classroom, which is presented in four-yes/
no question items. The model that Rubdy proposes 
for coursebook evaluation includes three categories 
of validity, namely, ‘psychological validity’, ‘peda-
gogical validity’ and ‘process and content validity’. 
Psychological validity is associated with learners’ 
needs, goals and pedagogical requirements while 
pedagogical validity is about teachers’ skills, abili-
ties, theories and beliefs. Process and content valid-
ity, on the other hand, is related to the author’s pre-
sentation of the content and approach to the teaching 
and learning. In this model, Rubdy (Rubdy,2003:39) 
[17] suggests two modes of evaluation as static 
and dynamic. The former mode is used to evaluate 
“tangible” aspects like teacher and learner materials 
while the latter explores abstract aspects like “flex-
ibility, creativityand exploration”.
In another study, Miekley (Miekley, 2005:34) 
[18] introduces a checklist that he assumes to be an 
asset in coursebook evaluation. These evaluative 
criteria comprise of a checklist divided into three 
sections; textbook, teacher’s manual and context. 
Textbook section offers sub-categories of content, 
vocabulary and grammar, exercises and activities, 
attractiveness of the texts and physical make-up 
with elaborating yes/no questions for each category. 
Besides, teacher’s manual section includes general 
features, background information, methodological 
guidance, supplementary exercises and materials 
with underlying yes/no questions. Context section, 
on the other hand is comprised of yes/no questions 
with more elaborative yes/no questions underneath 
signaling the appropriacy for the curriculum, stu-
dents and teachers to be rated in a 5- point Likert 
scale from excellent to totally lacking as well as op-
tions of mandatory, optional and not applicable.
Regarded as one of the 21st Century Skills, the 
ICT tools investigated in each course book were 
audio CDs, CD-ROMs, DVDs, chat, e-mail, social 
software (blog, wiki, podcast), the Internet (web-
page), e-portfolio and internet-based project works. 
The findings showed that few ICT tools were inte-
grated with the course books while most of them 
were ignored. To elaborate, all of the course books 
were supplied with audio CDs and web-page. How-
ever, none of them provided social software, e-mail, 
chat or internet-based project works. Only one of the 
course books had e-portfolio while two of them had 
the components of CD-ROMs and DVDs.
Having seen that most of the ICT tools were ig-
nored in the course books, the researcher concluded 
the study with the pedagogical benefits of integrat-
ing these tools into the course books.
Despite the fact that little research has been done 
to analyse 21st Century Skills in ELT course books, 
some studies were available on the evaluation of 
communication and critical thinking in the course 
books which are two of the 4Cs (communication, 
collaboration, critical thinking and creativity) aimed 
to be investigated in the current study. With respect 
to studies conducted on communication, Faucette 
aimed to identify and analyse the concepts and ex-
amples of communication strategies in ELT mate-
rials. There were eleven communication strategies 
categorised by the researcher as recommended to 
teach, possibly recommended and not recommended 
to teach. The recommended communication strate-
gies were identified as ‘approximation / generalisa-
tion’, ‘circumlocution / paraphrase’, ‘word coinage’ 
and ‘appeal for assistance’. The researcher included 
foreignizing and time-stalling devices in the catego-
ry of possibly recommended. However, the strate-
gies of ‘borrowing’, ‘topic avoidance’, ‘message 
replacement’, ‘abandonment’ and ‘non-verbals’ 
were kept under the category of not recommended 
to teach. All the strategies were investigated in ELT 

98
An analysis of elt coursebooks in terms of 21
st
century skills
textbooks and teachers’ resource books in another 
study. Over nine ELT textbooks and eight teachers’ 
resource books, communication strategies included 
the most were appeal for assistance and circumlo-
cution /paraphrase. In addition, the findings showed 
that textbooks seemed to promote communication 
strategies less than the teachers’ resource books and 
the activities presented in the textbooks were not ef-
fective as they were desired to be. However, com-
munication strategies introduced in the teachers’ 
resource books were not ideal either, which led the 
researcher to conclude with a request of more high-
quality materials to be designed to teach communi-
cation strategies. Another study that investigated the 
coursebooks used in 11th and 12th grades in Mo-
roccan public schools in terms of critical thinking 
was done by Mrah (Mrah ,2017:230) [19] through 
content analysis. The learning objectives of Bloom’s 
Revised Taxonomy were addressed in each reading 
task of ‘Ticket to English’ Level 1 and 2. In both lev-
els, lower-order thinking skills were more frequent. 
The cognitive category understand was the most 
frequent one while there was no task promoting the 
cognitive category create. The study, also, listed the 
types of reading activities included in both course-
books for each category of the taxonomy. In con-
clusion, the author suggested some reading activity 
types that could be included in the coursebooks to 
foster higher-order thinking skills.
Wu and Pei (Wu and Pei,2018:80) [20], on 
the other hand, analysed three coursebooks used 
for intensive reading purposes in freshman year of 
English Majors. The coursebooks to be analysed 
were English through Culture (2004), Contem-
porary College (2010) and Think English (2015). 
The authors developed their coding scheme based 
on Bloom’s Original Taxonomy with definitions of 
each cognitive level, question words and patterns. 
The questions in each reading task were identified 
as simple and composite questions and they were 
evaluated separately to see how the cognitive lev-
els of Bloom’s Taxonomy were covered in simple 
and composite questions. The study findings indi-
cated that in all three books, the lowest cognitive 
level of the taxonomy ‘knowledge’ was included the 
most while ‘application’ level was the least. Another 
finding revealed from the study was that the more 
recently the book was published, the more activi-
ties that promote higher-order thinking skills were 
included.
Considering the other 2Cs of the 21st Century 
Skills which are creativity and collaboration, the 
current study is unable to present available studies 
since the author could not find any on evaluating 
ELT coursebooks in terms of creativity and collabo-
ration. Moreover, available literature has provided 
no studies regarding the coursebooks to be analysed 
in the current study. As the related studies show, lit-
tle research has been done to investigate the 4Cs of 
the 21st Century Skills in ELT coursebooks. Having 
stated in the previous sections, in the light of this 
research, communication, collaboration, creativ-
ity and critical thinking skills are analysed in ELT 
coursebooks. The following section presents the 
methodology which explains “how” this research 
problem is investigated.

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