Evaluating Four Corners Textbooks in Terms of Cognitive Processes Using Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

This study evaluated 2 ELT textbooks (Four Corners, Book 2 and Four CornersBook 3) drawing on Bloom’s revised taxonomy (BRT); it examined the extent towhich these ELT textbooks could demonstrate the 6 cognitive categories of the BRT(i.e., remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating) intheir activities. To this end, content analysis was done to obtain the frequency andproportion of various cognitive processes. Results revealed the prevalence of theprocesses of remembering and understanding in the textbooks. Also, creatingprocess constituted the lowest percentage of processes in both textbooks.Furthermore, the lower-order categories (i.e., remembering, understanding, andapplying) were more frequently represented than the higher-order ones (i.e.,analyzing, evaluating, and creating). However, the chi-square test did not show asignificant difference between Book 2 (a less advanced-level textbook) and Book 3(a more advanced-level textbook) in terms of the 6 levels of cognitive skills. Theresults indicate that the above textbooks, much against expectations, fail to engagelearners so well in the activities requiring higher levels of cognitive ability,prerequisites of autonomous language learning. By implication, some of theactivities in the more advanced-level textbook should be adapted to make learnersbecome more intellectual contributors to their language learning.