An Evaluation of the Teaching/learning of Academic/Scientific Texts in the Second Year Secondary School Textbook “Getting Through” from English for Specific Purposes Perspective

Abstract

The present study aimed at evaluating the extent to which scientific texts in the second year secondary school English textbook “Getting through” are capable of developing an adequate level of English for specific purposes (ESP) awareness among Algerian students. To achieve this aim, two research tools have been self-designed and implemented: a checklist and a teachers’ questionnaire. The questionnaire has been administered to twenty secondary school EFL teachers in four secondary schools in the province of Jijel. The checklist-based evaluation demonstrated that although scientific texts in the textbook under study are easy, accessible, manifesting the main aspects of academic discourse, adjusted to the level of the pupils, and adapted to teaching the four language macro-skills, these texts are inadequate for raising the required level of ESP’ awareness because of their insufficient number, their unauthentic language, their haphazard presentation, and their neglect of the need to cater for pupils’ autonomy in the production of the texts in question