Materials development in TESOL has been gaining popularity as a field of study for the last few decades. TESOL materials research as an area of inquiry includes studies focusing on textbook content (e.g., grammar, cultural representation, and authenticity), consumption (use/adaptation of materials by learners and teachers), and production (design…

This paper explores the representation and non-representation of slavery in US school textbooks from the late eighteenth century to the beginning of the US Civil War. It reviews the major readers, almost none of which mentioned slavery despite the anti-slavery sentiments of many textbook editors. The few readers that addressed slavery did so in…

Open educational resources (OERs) are an alternative textbook to publisher materials used by colleges and universities. While OERs likely reduce the cost of college for students, research is mixed on the impact of these textbooks on student success in college. The present study utilizes preference score matching (PSM) methodology to compare OER…

There is at present much focus in ELT on describing and promoting teacher and learner agency. However, ELT as a professional field is concurrently characterised by an increasing orientation toward authoritative texts, particularly those imbued with authority at the transnational level. Global textbooks are a notable example, since they, along with…

Selecting course reading materials is not necessarily an easy process. This article discusses selection concerns such as cost, inclusivity and options ranging from traditional textbooks to course packs. A review of literature finds extensive information about adoption of OER materials. Additionally, articles referring to difficulties in course…

This article examines the presentation of West Germany's "economic miracle" and East Germany's planned economy in school textbooks published between 2014 and 2016. The textbooks tell a success story of the "social market economy" that hardly takes into account the academic research of the last forty years. The results…

As material that projects linguistic and cultural knowledge to students, English Language learning textbooks shape students' learning in various educational contexts. However, many textbooks have been found to perpetuate Anglo-Western norms and beliefs; thus, they fail to represent local students' socio-cultural backgrounds. With this in mind, our…

Secondary school English is shaped not only by complex institutional and discursive forces but also by the mundane reality of available resources. Among the resources used by teachers are commercial textbooks. Classroom textbooks can play a significant role in determining what gets taught in English lessons. They can also influence assumptions…

The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the concepts of linguistic colonialism and cultural alienation in University textbooks for teaching English as opposed to the theories about culture in the decolonial turn. Dichotomous categories were established based on the analysis of the cultural component of the textbooks for the teaching of…

Structure building refers to the way in which people construct meaning from incoming information by creating a foundation of mental nodes, mapping incoming information to the foundational structure, and shifting to a new structure when necessary. Structure building ability has been shown to moderate learning both in laboratory-based and…

What changes did the content, structure, and production of Russian primers published in the Soviet Union undergo between 1941 and 1948--that is, during the Second World War and its aftermath? This article answers this question by analyzing language, content, iconography, and the printing process. The first section addresses key characteristics of…

Liberal Studies (LS), a high-stakes senior secondary school subject in Hong Kong, has evoked widespread debate in recent years concerning the curriculum content about Mainland China. Highlighting the deregulated textbook policy on this subject as adopted by the Hong Kong Education Bureau (EDB), this paper compares how specific socio-political…

Opportunities for academic libraries to enrich their products and services through facilitating open education (OE) in higher education are presented in an overview of good practices. A case study of open textbook publishing was performed at TU Delft to study how these products and services could stimulate educators to adopt OE. A simplified user…

In recent decades there has been a growing interest in the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF), for example identifying the lingua franca core (LFC), or pronunciation features important for intelligibility in ELF contexts. While some analyses of course books (CBs) have shown ELF research findings are not yet reflected in these materials, few…

Research on nature of science (NOS) has confirmed that students' understanding of NOS is best achieved by explicitly considering NOS a cognitive learning expectation and providing opportunities to reflect on it. However, little has been discussed on how to design and use tasks enhancing students' NOS understanding. In an attempt to fill this gap,…