the evaluation and comparison of two esp textbooks available on the iranian market for teaching english to the students of medicine

abstract this study evaluated and compared medical terminology and english for the students of medicine (ii) as two representatives of the textbooks available on the iranian market for teaching english to the students of medicine. this research was performed on the basis of a teacher’s and a number of students’ attitudes and the students’ needs analysis for two reasons: first, to investigate the extent to which each textbook addresses the students’ specific needs and the teacher’s expectations and second, to give more insights into the textbooks’ strengths and weaknesses and make suggestions for their improvement. some survey questionnaires were used to elicit the perspectives of 50 students and 1 teacher. there were a teacher textbook evaluation questionnaire including 37 items and a students’ textbook evaluation questionnaire including 23 items, both under 7 main categories: practical considerations, layout and design, activities, skills, language type, subject and content and conclusion or overall consensus. student profile and needs analysis forms were also used. each statement in the textbook evaluation questionnaires represented one characteristic of the textbook and each category a class or type of characteristic. the data was subjected to descriptive statistics first, and then inferential statistics of the results were presented. four different types of computations were done: a per-item analysis, a per-category analysis, comparative analysis of the two textbooks through conducting some paired samples t-tests, and the students’ needs analysis. the findings of statement analysis and category analysis of both the teacher’s and the students’ responses were generally in favor of medical terminology. in the evaluation of medical terminology (mt), statement analysis indicated that 78% of the items in the student questionnaire and 78% of the items in the teacher questionnaire received positive or almost positive responses from the students and the teacher respectively. in the evaluation of english for the students of medicine (esm), statement analysis indicated that 30% of the items in the student questionnaire and 49% of the items in the teacher questionnaire received positive or almost positive responses from the students and the teacher respectively. the results of category analysis indicated that from the students’ perspective, mt was significantly better than esm with respect to the categories of layout and design, activities, language type and subject and content and esm was significantly better than mt with respect to the category of practical considerations (price and availability). from the teacher’s perspective, mt was significantly better than esm with respect to the category of layout and design. the other categories were also scored higher in mt than in esm by the teacher, however, the difference was not significant. the results of the students’ needs analysis indicated that in the students’ opinion, language in mt was almost at the right level for them and in esm it was not and that none of the textbooks met their needs regarding their preferred learning style, preferred type of interaction, preferred english accent, some of the language skills, communicative activities and inclusion of subjects of interest to the students. .