Helping Material in English Textbooks for Teaching Reading Skillsat the Intermediate Level: A Critical Analysis

Nadia Ghaffar, Dr. Neelum Almas, Dr. Amer Akhtar

Abstract
The study was undertaken to analyze the textbook helping material for teaching reading at the intermediate level. The particular objectives of the study were to analyze if the helping material lays equal emphasis on different subskills of reading e.g. skimming, scanning, prediction, anticipation and inference and to analyze the relevance of the activities to the content of the lesson. It also analyzed how varied the activities in the helping material are and if they are appropriate for the intermediate level. The books taken for the study were Intermediate Level textbooks of Punjab Textbook Board Pakistan; Book 1 (Short Stories), Book 2 (Modern Prose and Heroes) and Book 3 (Plays and Poems). The study is based on content analysis. As a result of the study it has been found out that the helping material in the books focuses mostly on a small set of sub skills i.e. scanning, skimming and past tense. There is also a lot of unnecessary repetition and some activities are too simple for this level. The study proposes recommendations for the teachers, students as well as the curriculum developers to improve the helping material in the books.

Key words: English textbook, helping material, intermediate level, textbook evaluation

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