Chilean English Teachers’ Perception on Textbooks Used in Public and Private Schools in Chile

Abstract

The assessment of textbooks is essential to understand their function, features, and teaching mechanisms, as well as to be able to employ them efficiently. However, teachers use them intuitively, without any instruction to facilitate the learning process. This study explores teachers" perception on EFL textbooks in order to understand the object of study from the teachers" point of view. A survey was conducted to 484 participants from different educational contexts. Findings show that teachers in the public system perceive that government-delivered textbooks do not favor the learning process of English as a second language, mainly, because they are not adaptable to the public classroom diversity and they are not mismatched with the national curriculum. In contrast, teachers who work with textbooks selected by themselves are more satisfied, because they can choose the textbooks based on their students" proficiency levels and their schools educational projects. This means that schools must have textbooks that can adapt to diversity and also promote effective learning.