Evaluating the ELT Coursebooks for Young Learners: The Issue of Affective Engagement

Coursebooks are known to be the most well-acknowledged language learning and teaching materials. The effectiveness of the coursebooks for fruitful language learning can be augmented with considerations of the second language acquisition theories. Among these, affective engagement is one of the significant contributors to language acquisition characterized by the active involvement of the learners’ emotions, such as enthusiasm, excitement, curiosity, enjoyment, and purposefulness. This study investigates the affective engagement elements of a series of coursebooks used in private elementary schools in Turkey. To this end, six commonly used coursebooks were evaluated based on one criterion set by Tomlinson and Masuhara (2013) to determine to what extent they are likely to be affectively engaging. A group of four researchers made a consensus on the selection and evaluation process of a coursebook from the series, as well as two chapters from each coursebook. The affective engagement was evaluated according to the content delivery, activity types, visual elements, and possible involvement of the audience of the coursebook, and each coursebook was scored 1 to 3. Results indicated that coursebooks have the potential to be effective in terms of emotional engagement; however, this potential has been minimally utilized. The results are discussed in alignment with the literature, along with recommendations to the coursebooks designers and practitioners.