Global of Foreign Language Relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards Iranian ''Prospect'' series and their TKT

This study aimed 1) to explore Iranian EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the different aspects of the English textbooks prospect used at the first three grades of high school in Iran 2) to probe any relationship between the teachers 'attitudes towards prospect series and their TKT level. A questionnaire and a structured interview were utilized as instruments in this research. The questionnaire was structured in 3 units: The first unit was intended to record the respondents’ demographic information such as their age, sex, field of study, university, and teaching experience; the second unit including 24 items was intended to discover the respondents’ level of TKT; and the third unit including 28 items was designed to elicit the teachers’ attitudes towards the current high school textbooks. This questionnaire of attitude was designed in the form of Likert scale including strongly disagree, disagree, slightly disagree, agree, slightly agree and strongly agree. The data of the study were collected through administering the questionnaire to 80 teachers from Amol, Isfahan and Tehran. Also, semi-organized interviews have been carried out with twelve teachers selected from the eighty to cross-check the results of the study. Due to the rate of the absence, seventy of them completed the questionnaire. After administering questionnaire, the data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially. The results of the Pearson Chi 2 and Fisher's Exact p-value were respectively o.516 and 0.642. Since they are above %0.05, we can conclude that there is no significant relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT. The results indicated that a) the participants had positive (high) attitudes towards the English series Prospect b) There is not any significant relationship between the teachers’ positive attitudes towards the new text books and their TKT level.


Introduction
Evaluating language materials is very useful for language teachers, and one essential consideration in evaluating language materials is obtaining the teachers' views on its value (Tomlinson, 2003).Teacher's attitudes towards their textbooks are very important, both for the teachers themselves and for the students.If teachers hold positive attitudes towards their textbooks, students will gain high motivation to learn English.And if not so, students' motivations will most probably tend to be low.Attitudes will play a very crucial role in language learning as they would appear to affect students' success or failure in their learning.It is also believed that positive attitude accelerates foreign language learning while negative attitude acts as a psychological obstacle against it (Dörnyei, 1998;Dörnyei & Csizér, 2002).Textbooks hold an important status as an inseparable element of language teaching vocation; therefore, appraising and evaluating them seems to be vital to assure their efficiency dependability with the objectives defined and expected of the course.The purpose of this study is to find the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers' attitudes towards Iranian ''Prospect'' series and their TKT.Dr.Mohiyeddin Bahram Mohammadian in a meeting in Golestan Province stated that the ministry of education and training is not responsible for producing knowledge and science.This is the duty of universities and the ministry of science, research and technology.He further added that after twenty seven years, we could finally change the contents of English text books in Iran.Also, Dr. Seyed Behnam Alavi Moqaddam stated that those teachers who did not take TTC courses for prospect series are not allowed to teach these books.He also stated that our English teachers have improved their language skills to a great degree but they still need to promote their expertise more and more.He also added that the current English text books were also supplemented with some guide books and multi-media compact discs.Also he said that in Junior high school (the first three years of high school), we have prospect series, and in the senior high school (the second three years of high school), we have Vision series.He has a positive view towards the new books and said that after completing the high school studies, the students will reach the international level of B1 and can read and listen, write and speak English to an acceptable degree.According to him, the difference between the old books and the new books is that in the past, we only had one book and one cassette.But now, for each grade, we have an educational package which includes student book, work book, audio files, teacher's guide book, teacher's flash cards and teacher's tutorial compact discs.
Attitudes towards language learning also seem connected to the context where learning takes place (Gagnon, 1974;Krashen, 1997).In SLA, we usually face two types of Attitudes: Attitudes towards the learning of the language, and Attitudes towards the society of the target language.While the first kind of attitudes is educational by nature, the second one is more social.SLA writings support a relationship between attitudes towards language learning and success in the language (Masgoret & Gardner, 2003) even more than that of other subjects of the curriculum (Jordan, 1941).

Research Questions
The study seeks answers to the following questions: 1.What are Iranian high school teachers' attitudes towards their new English textbooks prospect?2. What is the TKT level of the selected Iranian high school EFL teachers?3. Is there any significant relationship between Iranian high school teachers' attitudes towards their English textbooks prospect and their level of TKT?

Review of Literature
It is widely accepted that an English teacher benefits from positive attitude and that negative attitude may lead to decrease in input and interaction and consequently it leads to unsuccessful attainment of proficiency by the side of the students.A constant incentive for change in the old EFL text book arena has been the frequently-voiced disappointment.After spending a considerable amount of time learning English in the classrooms, the students lack the proper knowledge or ability to use English for communication.Long lists of words in English courses and their teachers were thought of as live dictionaries and this is the case of old English text books in Iran, but the advocates of new series prospect believe that there is more to EFL teaching than exposing the students to correct grammar.Furthermore, in order to have a clear and well-functioning curriculum, as Johnson (1989) argues, all the participants' attitudes should be taken into consideration in all decision-making courses.The result can be obvious in the form of good text books such as prospect, policy booklets, curricula, courses for training teachers, materials and resources for teaching, and the action of learning and teaching.A good text book and a logical and vigorous curriculum encourages reflective teaching on the teachers' side and provokes them into raising questions coming up with proper answers to those challenges.Gardner and Lambert (1972) stated that positive attitudes toward language improve proficiency.Nikolov (2001) found that negative attitude to Russia or Russians was responsible for their failure to learn or retain the language.
Attitudes are such important issues that Iranian EFL teachers' attitudes towards teaching can be regarded as the cause of teachers' either success or failure.The way teachers see themselves in relation to their work and the way they look at the text books that they are going to teach is an attitudinal issue that has been overlooked.Usually, it is supposed that a teacher should be self-assured and self-confident.If they are hesitant about their roles as teachers, in spite of all the positive attitudes which they might have, logically we should expect that they devaluate their advising roles (Clemente, 2001).
A secondary concern of the research was to explore if any significant relationship between the teachers' attitudes towards the present EFL text books prospect and their TKT level exists.Teachers' attitudes have been one of the least scrutinized areas of EFL research on instruction worldwide (Clemente, 2001).This study is particularly worthwhile because it may provide awareness concerning teachers' valuable opinions as valid sources of developments in the syllabus or any other sort of curriculum or text book renovation.The author of this paper believes that in the past, within the setting of the strictly top-down educational system in Iran, the teachers' roles in the processes of syllabus design and content selection and their attitudes towards what they were expected to teach had typically been disregarded, but now, it is not so.

The role of textbooks in language learning
Textbooks are considered the key element of most language programs (Richards, 2001) and provide the required input into classroom lessons through different activities, readings and explanations (Tomlinson, 2003).Clandfield (2010) in a new internet discussion about the use of course book, states that textbooks are beneficial tools for ELT in that they provide a framework for teachers and students to follow, provide nice-looking, motivational, colorful and diverse content, serve as a great time-saver for teachers, and provide a source of ideas and methodology for them.In spite of these values, there are possible negative effects of using textbooks.According to Cunningsworth (1995), the textbooks serve for the language course as a source for material presentation, activities for learner practice and communicative interaction, stimulation and ideas for classroom activities, and a reference source for learners on grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.The faultless textbook does not exist, because Textbooks may provide learners with inauthentic language, they may contain inaccurate content, and they may disregard students' needs or de-skill teachers (Richards, 2001).However "the best book accessible for teachers and their learners does exist" (Grant, 1987).This is the book that is adapted to the needs, interests and abilities of both the learners and the teacher.

Attitudes towards schools' previous and present English textbooks in Iran
The purpose of learning English as a foreign language in Iran is to acquaint students with science, literature, and art of the English speaking countries for a global understanding and providing them with a means of finding foreign sources of information (Birjandi & Soheili, 1982).As these goals may not have been attained in language classes in Iran, the national EFL curriculum has been under careful scrutiny to find the sources for such disappointment.
According to the language professionals, one source of EFL curriculum problems in Iran in the past was the English textbooks (Rahimi & Nabilou, 2009).Studies on materials evaluation in Iran have confirmed the ineffectiveness of old English textbooks from the viewpoint of teachers.Iranian teachers believed that problems with these old books could be attributed to high load of information, unsuitable teaching content, inconsistency between the content and learning objective, incomplete clarification for vocabulary, disregarding students' cognitive development, lack of amusing materials, lack of genuine materials, disregarding oral skills, ignoring communicative language teaching, and lack of scientific approaches to teaching pronunciation (Moradi, 2008;Rahimi & Nabilou, 2009).Some language professionals have done content studies on English textbooks from different viewpoints such as problems with classifying and intricacy of readings (Ahmadi, 2007), culture (Safarnavadeh, 2004), arousing students' motivation (Ketabi & Talebinezhad, 2009), the amount of representation of CLT principles (Razmjoo, 2007), the types of learning objectives (Riazi & Mossalanejad, 2010), and national identity and globalization (Khajavi & Abbasian, 2011).Most of these findings showed poor results as regards the way English textbooks present materials and learning objectives.While, based on the study which was done by the researchers in the Ministry of Education, and having an interview with one of the official experts (i.e. an expert in the center for compiling high school's old textbooks), they found out that during the history of EFL teaching in the country (in the past), no specific syllabus design and curriculum planning and no teachers' guidebook were designed for EFL teachers at high schools in the past.The only reference was a manual prepared by Zareii and Anani in 1993, encompassing some guidelines for teaching diverse skills using different teaching methods-pre-CLT to post-CLT.
Additionally, in the past, many in-service programs failed to demonstrate a practical, successful and clear models and approaches to the teachers to bridge the gap between theory and practice.These programs could have reinforced teachers' peer learning and encouraged them to participate in inservice programs more often.This could stimulate more communication on the teachers' side which, in turn, would reinforce the development of their critical thinking and would motivate them to become classroom researchers to put their theory into practice and practice their theories.
In the past, in the process of compiling the textbooks, the official experts and textbook writers did not consider teachers' ideas and perceptions very seriously.This could make teachers prejudiced and unfair.While, in Journal of Education (Education & Psychology, Shahid Chamran University, p 127) the modern age, teachers' perception of the contents, their attitudes and beliefs are highly important since they always have close interaction with students and know about their needs and what they bring into teaching context and how easily they learn.In addition to inserting CLT-based materials and methods in the textbooks, teachers should be taught on how to use them.

Design of the study
The study selected the descriptive method of research for describing Iranian teachers' attitudes toward the prospect series used at the first three grades of high school, using both quantitative and qualitative instruments.

Participants
After having a panel dialogue with the official experts in the Iranian Ministry of Education, some cities including Amol, Isfahan and Tehran were selected based on their educational potentialities.Then, the subject pool was selected from those cities.The participants in our sample comprised seventy English teachers, thirty of them female, and forty of them males, with their age ranging from 24 to 54 years and with teaching experiences from 1 to 30 years.

Instrument
A questionnaire and a structured interview were utilized as instruments in this research.The questionnaire was structured in 3 units: The first unit was intended to record the respondents' demographic information such as their age, sex, field of study, university, and teaching experience; the second unit including 24 items was intended to discover the respondents' level of TKT; and the third unit including 28 items was designed to elicit the teachers' attitudes towards the current high school textbooks.This questionnaire of attitude was designed in the form of Likert scale including strongly disagree, disagree, slightly disagree, agree, slightly agree and strongly agree (Hammad, 2012;Henrique, 2009;Miekley, 2005).
To complete the data gathered by the questionnaire, the researchers conducted semi-organized interviews.The interviews were not the main instrument for getting information.Rather, they were used just for cross-validating the questionnaire where nearly the same questions as those of the questionnaire were orally asked from the interviewees.The language of the interview was English.According to Lodico, Spaulding, and Voegtle (2006), semi-organized interviews can help us gather indepth data through letting the researcher analyze beyond the interview questions.The semi-organized interviews in this research were face-to-face meetings with twelve teachers.The questions were designed with regard to some questions used in similar studies (Hammad, 2012;Henrique, 2009;Miekley, 2005).

Procedure
To conduct the purposes of the present research, certain procedures were employed.Some arrangers in different schools collaborated with the researchers in distributing and gathering the questionnaires.Out of 80 questionnaires given to the target sample, 70 questionnaires were completed due to the rate of absence and were returned .The interviews were carried out by the researchers face to face to explore the interviewees' thoughts and rationale concerning their attitudes towards the text book , and for cross-validating the results of the questionnaire.The research was conducted in Tehran in the first semester of the school year 2015-2016, and the quantitative data were collected in February.After obtaining the permission from the Iranian Ministry of Education, the researchers communicated with all schools principals and agreed with them on a suitable time for administering the instruments.First, the questionnaire was administered to eighty teachers working in the twenty six schools selected from Tehran's schools within twenty working days.And of course seventy of them completed the questionnaire due to the rate of absence.The questionnaire photocopies were distributed to the participants, who were assured of complete privacy of their answers.Administering the questionnaire took about twenty minutes.After administering the questionnaire, the researchers began to gather in-depth data about the teachers' attitudes towards the textbooks prospect used in the first three grades of high school.Out of the twenty six schools to which the study questionnaire was administered, a total of twelve teachers were asked to take part in our interview.As mentioned before, the researchers agreed with the schools' principals on a suitable time for conducting the interview.The twelve teachers were interviewed face to face.The twelve interviewees were told that their attendance in the interview session was voluntary and their identities would be kept confidential.The participants were encouraged to express their opinions without any kind of restrictions.

Results and Discussion
The statistics of the questionnaire were analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).And Means, standard deviations, and percentages were calculated.For analyzing the data, the interviews were fully reviewed by the interviewer.Then, the data were coded and organized into a number of classifications (content, vocabulary and grammar, pictures, drills and questions, and Teacher's Guide book).For achieving data believability, another researcher revised and coded the material, and the two researchers agreed with each other on 88% of the coded data.Furthermore, the researchers compared the data with that of the questionnaire.As the table above shows, the number of females was 30 and the number of males was 40.In other words, % 42 of population was female and %57 was male.Regarding the age of the participants, the age mean of the participants was 36.91, with a standard deviation of 8.73, ranging from the age of 24 to 54.The total number of participants was 70 out of which 53 had BA degree and 17 had MA degree.Regarding the years of experience of the participants, the minimum was 1 and the maximum was 30, with a mean of 14.71 and a standard deviation of 8.44 .
Table 2.The relationship between TKT and Teachers' attitudes towards the series prospect using Pearson chi2 and Fisher's exact, based on the results of the questionnaire.
The researchers divided the total score of the attitude questionnaire into four sections: a.Those whose score was below 75=low achievers=1 st category b.Those whose score was between 75 and 85=intermediate achievers=2 nd category c.Those whose score was between 85 and 95=high achievers=3 rd category d.And finally those whose score was above 95=very high achievers=4 th category As the above table indicates, 25 participants scored 3 in their TKT.Out of these 25 participants, two of them were intermediate achievers in the attitudinal questionnaire.Eighteen of them were high achievers and five of them were very high achievers.Also, according to the above table, 45 participants scored 4 in their TKT.Out of these 45 participants, one of them was intermediate achiever, thirty five of them were high achievers and finally nine of them were very high achievers.
In order to measure whether Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT are related to each other, the researchers used PEARSON CHI 2 and FISHER'S EXACT and as the above table indicated, the Pearson chi 2 p-value was 0.516 and the Fisher's exact p-value was 0.642 .Since they are above %0.05,we can conclude that there is no significant relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT.
Table 3.The relationship between TKT and Teachers' attitudes towards the contents of the series prospect using Pearson chi2 and Fisher's exact As the above table indicates, 25 participants scored 3 in their TKT.Out of these 25 participants, one participant was low achiever.Two of them were intermediate achievers in the attitudinal questionnaire.Ten of them were high achievers and twelve of them were very high achievers.Also, according to the above table, 45 participants scored 4 in their TKT.Out of these 45 participants, one participant was low achiever.Five of them were intermediate achiever, sixteen of them were high achievers and finally Twenty three of them were very high achievers.
In order to measure whether Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the contents of Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT are related to each other, the researchers used PEARSON CHI 2 and FISHER'S EXACT and as the above table indicated, the Pearson chi 2 p-value was 0.930 and the Fisher's exact p-value was 0.970 .Since they are above %0.05,we can conclude that there is no significant relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the contents of the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT.
Table 4.The relationship between TKT and Teachers' attitudes towards the vocabularies and grammar of the series prospect using Pearson chi2 and Fisher's exact As the above table indicates, 25 participants scored 3 in their TKT.Out of these 25 participants, one participant was low achiever.Three of them were intermediate achievers in the attitudinal questionnaire.Nine of them were high achievers and twelve of them were very high achievers.Also, according to the above table, 45 participants scored 4 in their TKT.Out of these 45 participants, there was no low achiever.Three of them were intermediate achiever, Seventeen of them were high achievers and finally Twenty five of them were very high achievers.
In order to measure whether Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the vocabularies and grammar of the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT are related to each other, the researchers used PEARSON CHI 2 and FISHER'S EXACT and as the above table indicated, the Pearson chi 2 p-value was 0.472 and the Fisher's exact p-value was 0.499 .Since they are above %0.05,we can conclude that there is no significant relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the vocabularies and grammar of the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT.
Table 5.The relationship between TKT and Teachers' attitudes towards the drills of the series prospect using Pearson chi2 and Fisher's exact As the above table indicates, 25 participants scored 3 in their TKT.Out of these 25 participants, two participants were low achievers.Two of them were intermediate achievers in the attitudinal questionnaire.Thirteen of them were high achievers and eight of them were very high achievers.Also, according to the above table, 45 participants scored 4 in their TKT.Out of these 45 participants, two of them were low achievers.Seven of them were intermediate achiever, twenty of them were high achievers and finally sixteen of them were very high achievers.
In order to measure whether Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the drills of the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT are related to each other, the researchers used PEARSON CHI 2 and FISHER'S EXACT and as the above table indicated, the Pearson chi 2 p-value was 0.724 and the Fisher's exact p-value was 0.687 .Since they are above %0.05,we can conclude that there is no significant relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the drills of the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT.Table 6.The relationship between TKT and Teachers' attitudes towards the teachers' guide of the series prospect using Pearson chi2 and Fisher's exact As the above table indicates, 25 participants scored 3 in their TKT.Out of these 25 participants, there were no low or intermediate achievers in the attitudinal questionnaire.Twelve of them were high achievers and thirteen of them were very high achievers.Also, according to the above table, 45 participants scored 4 in their TKT.Out of these 45 participants, three of them were low achievers.Six of them were intermediate achiever, twelve of them were high achievers and finally twenty four of them were very high achievers.
In order to measure whether Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the teachers' guide of the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT are related to each other, the researchers used PEARSON CHI 2 and FISHER'S EXACT and as the above table indicated, the Pearson chi 2 p-value was 0.068 and the Fisher's exact p-value was 0.067 .Since are above %0.05,we can conclude that there is no significant relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the teacher's guide of the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT.but if we take %10 as the significance level, we can say that there is a significant relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the teacher's guide of the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT.Now, let's take a look at the interview results and see whether it has the same results as those of the questionnaire.
Twelve of those teachers who participated in the questionnaire, took part in the interview.
Table 7.Some data related to the interview As it is shown in the above table, four of the interviewees scored 3 in their TKT and eight of them scored 4. Six of them were female and six of them were male.Nine of them had BA degree and three of them had MA degree.Their age was ranging from 27 to 45, with a mean of 34 and standard deviation of 5.79.Their years of experience were ranging from 5 to 22, with a mean of 11.66 and standard deviation of 5.49 Table 8.The attitudes of the interviewees towards the interview questions Table 9.The relationship between TKT and Teachers' attitudes towards the series prospect using Pearson chi2 and Fisher's exact, based on the results of the interview.
The researchers divided the total score of the attitude interview into four sections: e.Those whose score was below 75=low achievers=1 st category f.Those whose score was between 75 and 85=intermediate achievers=2 nd category g.Those whose score was between 85 and 95=high achievers=3 rd category h.And finally those whose score was above 95=very high achievers=4 th category As the above table indicates, 4 participants scored 3 in their TKT.Out of these 4 participants, one of them was low achiever, one of them was intermediate achiever.There was no one as high achiever and two of them were very high achievers.Also, according to the above table, 8 participants scored 4 in their TKT.Out of these 8 participants, there was no low achiever, four of them were intermediate achievers, one of them was high achiever and finally three of them were very high achievers.
In order to measure whether Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT are related to each other, the researchers used Pearson Chi 2 and Fisher's Exact and as the above table indicated, the Pearson chi 2 p-value was 0.392 and the Fisher's exact p-value was 0.798 .Since they are above %0.05,we can conclude that there is no significant relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT.
Then, we can conclude that both the results of the questionnaire and the results of the interview are in the same line and both of them indicate that there is no significant relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers' attitudes towards the Book series ''Prospect'' taught in Iran's Schools and their TKT.
For this study, Pearson Chi 2 and Fisher's Exact conducted to examine the third research question did not show any significant relationship between the teachers' positive attitudes towards their text book and their TKT.Teachers' positive attitude towards the text book is one way or another suggestive of their following the text book's instruction procedures in their classrooms.According to Elbaz (1983), practical knowledge contains practical principles and rules of practice.Literature proposes that incongruence between belief and practice be an issue that should be addressed by teacher educators, therefore teachers may become better equipped to bring together beliefs and practices in order to apply more effective instruction for the current text books.Moreover, the results indicated a significant difference between more-experienced and less-experienced teachers' attitudes towards the present materials.This may suggest that although more experienced teachers are supposed to be the spinal column of the teaching team in the EFL education, they need sufficient professionalism and updated teaching expertise and abilities.Seemingly, as long as the teachers continue to teach what they were taught, the past will be continued into the future if they do not regularly renovate their knowledge, educational principles, and teaching techniques and methods.
In order to examine the teachers' attitudes toward the diverse aspects of the English materials used at the first three grades of high school in Iran, a questionnaire and semi-organized interviews were utilized in the present study.Descriptive statistics were calculated to determine the mean scores and percentages of the questionnaire categories and items.Attitudes were determined based on the degree of agreement of each participant on each statement.Now, let's take a look at the responses of some of the interviewees underneath: Interviewee 12 (a teacher with six years of experience): As compared to the old textbooks, the recently used ones are very interesting.The textbooks cover diverse topics which are so wonderful, and related to students' daily life.Furthermore, the names mentioned in the units are picked from the L1 of the students.In fact, I easily get my students engaged in the English classes.That is why I enjoy teaching the textbooks.
However, some teachers (seven out of twelve) complained that the new English language curricula concentrated on listening at the expense of other language skills, particularly writing.
Unlike the attitude stated above, some interviewees (five out of twelve) believed that starting with teaching the skills of listening and speaking could simplify the teaching of reading and writing in later phases.In their view, reinforcing listening and speaking skills first can be the basis on which to build reading and writing.According to Saraswathi (2004), the communicative approach suggests that all language skills should be equally highlighted in teaching a foreign language, whereas the audiolingual method concentrates only on spoken language in the initial stages of learning.
From the interviews conducted, the researchers realized that the teachers are content with the time they have for teaching the new vocabularies of each unit.The interview statistics showed that all participants had a positive attitude towards textbooks' pictures used for teaching key items, revising previously learnt vocabularies, and discussing the text ideas.
Interviewee 4 (a teacher with two years of experience): The drills are related to students' competence level, and encourage the interaction-based use of language, i.e., rehearsing a dialogue between a teacher and a student.In addition, they reinforce students' vocabulary learning and use.I am also content with the time budget I have for teaching the new vocabularies.
But few teachers criticized that the drills did not encourage students' higher abilities of thinking: Interviewee 12 (a teacher with six years of experience): Most questions and drills promote daily language use and they encourage higher abilities of thinking.The students can respond to questions whose answers are explicitly stated in texts.
Interviewee 9 (a teacher with four years of experience): At times, I get the benefit when reading the procedures given in Teacher's Guide book; it provides me with the way I should follow in teaching role plays.Also, I see that the procedures put for teaching listening and speaking are implementable in our English classes, due to the time that is available.
In fact, it was discovered that all teachers were content with the time devoted to teaching the new contents.
The researchers understood that during the history of teaching old EFL text books in the country (in the past), no particular syllabus design and curriculum planning and no teachers' manual book were designed for EFL teachers in high schools.The only reference was a booklet prepared by Zareii and Anani in 1993, encompassing some guidelines for teaching different skills with diverse teaching methods-pre-CLT to post-CLT.Furthermore, in the past, many in-service programs couldn't demonstrate a practical, successful and clear models and approaches to the teachers to decrease the gap between theory and practice.These programs could have maintained teachers' peer learning and encourage them to take part in in-service programs more frequently.This could provoke more communication on the teachers' side which, in turn, would reinforce the development of their critical thinking and would encourage them to become classroom researchers to put their theory into practice and practice their theories.On the other hand, in the course of compiling the textbooks, the Official Experts and textbook writers did not pay attention to teachers' ideas and perspectives very seriously in the past .This could make teachers unfair and prejudiced.While, in the modern age, teachers' understanding of the contents , their ideas and beliefs are important, as they are always in close touch with students and know about their needs and what they bring into instruction and how easily they learn.(Journal of Education (Education & Psychology), Shahid Chamran University 127).Perhaps teachers' positive attitude towards the text book is not necessarily indicative of their following the text book's teaching Procedures in their classrooms.According to Elbaz (1983), practical knowledge comprises practical principles and rules of practice.Literature proposes that incongruence between belief and practice is a concern that should be addressed by teacher educators, so that teachers may become better equipped to reconcile beliefs and practices for the purpose of implementing more effective instruction for the current text books.This study has indicated that Iranian EFL teachers had positive attitudes towards the English materials used at the first three grades of high school in that the topics in such materials were perceived by the teachers to be related to students' cultural background, interests, and needs.
In spite of the above-mentioned results, most teachers interviewed criticized that while teaching the textbook, they were unable to follow all the steps put in Teacher's Guide book due to its irrelevance to the local educational situations under which Iran's teachers and students lived (large numbers of students in classes).In this context, Nation (2006) mentions that the conditions under which the learning occurs can affect the ease and difficulty of language learning.Moreover, for Widdowson (2012), if the teachers ask critical questions about theoretical approaches, they can make their practical activities related to the local conditions.It is apparent that Iran's governmental school teachers tried to raise critical views on the theoretical assumptions in the Teacher's Guide books and made them local to the new contexts, and luckily, the gap between theory and practice with regard to the new text books has been decreased but there is still a long path to get the favorable results.Ortega (2006) also points to the necessity of link between theory and practice in syllabus design.

Conclusion
Briefly stated, this study aimed to explore the Iranian EFL teachers' attitudes towards school's English textbooks prospect and to notice if there is any significant relationship between EFL teachers' attitudes towards the text book and their TKT level.The results indicate EFL teachers' positive attitudes towards the materials of high school English textbooks but did not show any significant relationship between the teachers' attitudes towards the text books and their TKT level.Therefore, if English teachers in Iran hold positive views about their text books, it does not necessarily mean that it is significantly related to their level of TKT.As we saw in this article, forty five participants scored 4 and twenty five of them scored 3 in their TKT questionnaire.But there was no significant relationship between their TKT level and their attitudes towards their text books.

Table 1 .
Gender, age, university degree and years of experience of the participants in the questionnaire