EVALUATION OF WRITING TASKS IN THE ENGLISH FOR ETHIOPIA STUDENTS' TEXTBOOK: GRADE 11 IN FOCUS

<strong>ABSTRACT: </strong>The main purpose of this study were to evaluate writing tasks in the new grade 11 English students’ textbook based on evaluation criteria in terms of the current communicative language teaching theory. The study was particularly aimed to evaluate components of communicative tasks, nature of writing tasks and appropriateness of writing tasks. The descriptive design was employed in the study. Document (text) analysis, structured interview and questionnaire were used as instruments of data collection in the study. Grade 11 English students’ textbook, three English language teachers and 40 students of Bariso Dukale Secondary School were used as sources of data for the study. The teachers were selected using purposive sampling whereas the students were selected using simple random sampling technique. The researcher used qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyze data. The findings of the study revealed that most of the objectives of the writing tasks are clearly stated in the students’ textbook and teacher’s guide for both students’ and teacher to understand where they are going and what they are going to achieve easily. However, some of the objectives are repeated in different units and lack variety. There are also some objectives in the textbook that are stated too general. Most of the inputs of writing tasks are presented in the form of instruction and seem to lack motivational value. The roles of teacher are stated clearly in most of the writing tasks of the teacher guide though there are some of them in which the roles are not clearly stated or not stated at all. However, most of them are very limited in incorporating the three stages of writing. Moreover, writing tasks are designed well with regard to consideration of students’ background knowledge (familiarity). In addition, writing tasks are appropriately designed so as to improve students’ mechanical practices such as spelling, vocabulary, punctuation, grammar etc. Furthermore, writing tasks in the textbook are well designed with regard to encouraging students to pass through different steps of writing like thinking, planning, drafting, rewriting, checking and writing finally. Therefore, it is recommended that curriculum designers and textbook writers should consider incorporating the five basic components of communicative tasks, give emphasis for communicative nature of writing tasks and appropriateness of writing tasks when designing tasks. In addition, teachers’ of the English language should try to see writing tasks critically and make a certain modifications when students face some confusion in performing tasks.