UNIVERSITY TEXTBOOKS, RESEARCH AND WRITING
Year:2013 | Volume:17 | Issue:29|Papers Count:6

While presenting a definition for effective university textbooks, this article introduces a selection of their most important features. There are 100 features in 10 categories, including: specialization and topic purposefulness, theoretical strength and functional argumentation, documentary quality and interdisciplinary nature, inclusiveness and updatability, qualifications and résumés of authors, writing and literary decency, coherent content and structure, compatibility with learning theories, interactive and motivating quality, as well as physical and visible features. Therefore, an effective book is a book that transmits the message and goals of its writer (s), has positive impact on readers so that it can improve their ideas. Thus, the presence of a proper portion of these features in a book leads to the fulfillment of its goals. In other words, an effective textbook is based on strong theoretical principles, has functional outcomes, is inclusive and up-to-date, reflects contemporary developments, properly communicates with readers and improves their motivation to follow the subjects. Both the scientific content, and the decent prose and structure of the book have a role in this communicative and motivating process.

Australia is a developed country whose main source of revenue, after its natural resources, is gained from the tuitions of the international students who study in this country. Therefore, Australia always attempts to update its higher education courses according to the international standards in all dimensions, including the presentation of new contents. In this regard, this study aims to study the whys and hows of composing and developing new courses and the relevant obstacles. For this purpose, eleven faculty members of the three main universities of Australia, including the University of New South Wales, Macquarie University and Sydney Technology University, who have had the experience of composing one or more courses for university schedule, have been selected for a semi- structured interview. After being transcribed, the interviews were categorized and analyzed. The results show that new courses have been developed for seven reasons. The process of new courses development is generally similar to the common models, however, some important points have been focused for composing thoroughly functional courses that will meet the needs of students and society.

Learning Arabic as the language of Islamic culture, and as the communicational language of Arabic speakers has led to the development of Arabic teaching courses, as well as the relevant material and teaching packs in academic centers and educational institutions of Iran. On the basis of their authors' goal(s), each one of these teaching packs has certain features including volume, structure, content, model and attachments, to which the efficacy level of each teaching pack is directly correlated. Cultural, artistic and psychological elements have an important role in this process too. Developing a convergent relation among the principles of teaching - being mentioned as “model” or “method” and is regarded as a platform for content exchange between teachers and students - is of paramount importance in the promotion of efficiency. Moreover, the design of this model has been based on paying attention to the relationship between the main language and the second language of students. In order to determine the efficiency level of these elements, a comparative study has been carried out on two teaching packs, Sadal-Hayat (Echo of Life) and Al-Arabia Lennashein (Arabic Language for Beginners), the former is Iran-made, and the latter is made in Arabic countries, and both of them are being used as textbooks in the universities of Iran; this study aims to show the determinants of efficacy promotion of Arabic skills teaching packs.

Vocabulary learning is an elemental sub-skill in academic courses of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). It contributes to all four language skills, specially reading comprehension. The ESP textbooks published by SAMT Organization, as the official university ESP textbooks in Iran, particularly focus on reading skill to the largest extent. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the given textbook developers to observe sufficiently the significance of vocabulary learning and its multi-dimensional quality. This study seeks to study and compare the aspects and levels of vocabulary learning in these ESP textbooks to determine which aspects of vocabulary garnered the writers’ attention in the Iranian official ESP textbooks. To this end, the vocabulary practices of thirty randomly selected SAMT ESP textbooks from three fields (Art and the Humanities, Basic/Technical/Engineering Sciences, and Medical Sciences) were analyzed according to a checklist that was developed by the authors of this article. The results indicated that the aspect of “concepts and referents” received the most attention in the sampled textbooks; and then the two aspects of “form and meaning” and “grammatical functions” respectively gained the writers’ attention. Other aspects were heeded little or received no attention. In the light of the findings, this study suggests that a more balanced treatment of all the vocabulary aspects should be undertaken by ESP textbooks writers. This study further discusses the significance and implications of the findings in the context of higher education.

The present study examined the effect of brainstorming techniques on student's creativity in learning illustration. The quasi-experimental method was used in pre- and post- testing by control group. The samples were 25 female students of graphic who were in the 3rd year of high school, in the educational district of Shahindej city, in the west Azarbayjan province. They were selected by purposive available sampling, in both experimental and control groups (10-15 subjects) and were respectively replaced. Before and after the implementation of brainstorming techniques, the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Form B) were used in order to measure creativity. Brainstorming techniques have been run for a month in teaching illustration to the experimental group. During this period, the control group was taught illustration through the conventional traditional practice, and there was no intervention to promote the level of creativity in illustrations of the control group. Finally, the data were analyzed by covariance analysis. Statistical findings of the research confirmed the research hypotheses regarding the impact of using brainstorming techniques for increasing student's creativity in training visualization. The data show that brainstorming techniques increase creativity of the experimental group and there is a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in relation to the features of creativity (Originality, Elaboration, Flexibility, and Fluency). Therefore, it is recommended to use brainstorming techniques in order to achieve creative ideas in illustration.

Language teaching has been always characterized by three concepts: professor, student, and textbook. The consistency between these concepts will meet the objectives of teaching. The content of textbook must be consistent with the goals of syllabi. Now it seems that the existing textbooks have not led to the expected development of the necessary language skills in students. This article not only analyzes the present condition of Iran-made textbooks of French language discipline in BA level, but also assesses the necessity of new sources. The statistical population of this research includes 57 professors of French language faculty who answered the questions and analyzed 35 books that have been published through the French language department of SAMT. This study is an applied-descriptive research and answers 3 questions through fieldwork and questionnaires. It shows that the resources cannot meet the needs of BA students of this field. Moreover, it recommends that composing French literature textbooks should be given a high priority. Statistical data and the sum-up of the comments made by the participant professors show that SAMT's French textbooks are not welcomed at the expected level. However, the reprints of these books as well as the students who accept them indicate that the books are still interesting for the relevant audience.