Evaluation of the grammatical content of the modern Persian language teaching textbooks

Teaching Persian language to non-Persian speakers’ books have many different features and aspects. In the same vein, they must be studied for comprehensive review, evaluation and critique provision. In order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of teaching Persian language to non-Persian speakers, it is needed to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of textbooks to overcome their shortcomings. One of the aspects of language teaching is teaching grammar. Pedagogical grammar is an important part of teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers; hence, with all its complexities and principles, it always requires special criticism and scrutiny. In this regard, the present study evaluates and criticizes the grammatical content of Modern Teaching of Persian Language books from the perspective of pedagogical grammar approach. Pedagogical grammar is different from other approaches of grammar in method, content and audience and is a process in which the procedure of teaching and learning takes place together, therefore it is non-linear and at the same time it is based on the teacher, learner and educational content.
Modern Teaching of Persian Language books by Ehsan Ghabul are published in five volumes. The first and second volumes of the book are dedicated to the beginning level, the third and fourth volumes of the book to the middle level and the fifth volume to the advanced level.
To evaluate the grammatical content of Ehsan Ghabul's five-volume set of Modern Teaching of Persian Language books, we selected five important and common features of pedagogical grammar theory from among the various and diffused features of this educational theory as follows:
1) The relationship between grammar and vocabulary instruction with other language courses
2) Contextual grammar teaching
2) Having a pedagogical grammar plan
2) The dominance of word instruction over grammar at the elementary level
2) The absolute grammar instruction in advanced stages
Then, according to nonlinear teaching of pedagogical grammar based on the three principles of book, learner and education-based content were adopted to obtain the most important revisions and rating scales for a more fundamental evaluation of this set. In the principle of book “the presentation method”, in the principle of learner “the "audience and practices" and in the principle of education-based content “the content” were indeed evaluated and studied.
To this end, at first all five volumes of the book were examined in terms of grammatical content; then the methodology of the pedagogical grammar of the set was analyzed in the above five principles. After the content analysis of the pedagogical grammar of Modern Teaching of Persian Language books, it was found that the grammatical content of the series, apart from the theoretical and methodological discussions, has some deficiencies which is inconsistent with the principles of Persian gramma. Thus, at the end of the article, the grammatical content problems in the four axes of grammatical inaccuracies, grammatical terminology, unusual and impractical sentences, writing mistakes were mentioned and suggestions for modifications were made.
Research findings can be examined based on the five axes of pedagogical grammar in content, method, presentation method, and audience and exercises.
The grammatical content of this book series lacks a coherent and planned layout, making the initial levels of the set grammatically bulky and difficult. On the other hand, the content of the grammar is absolute and the efficient and communicative features of the pedagogical grammar do not appear in it. This content is also devoid of step-by-step instruction. The author in compiling the grammatical content of this set has not utilized any systematic approach. Even worse, the grammatical errors in grammatical contents of the book made it far from the principles of traditional grammar.
The author of Modern Teaching of Persian Language books has taught grammar on the basis of his own individual learning or traditional available grammar. Furthermore, the grammatical content selection and arrangement has no combinational, linear, cyclic or procedural modes in its explanation.
The target audience of this educational book series is children based on images, texts and the book design, especially at the introductory levels. On the other hand, the rapid alphabet instruction and separation of the four Persian-specific phonemes and frequent use of Arabic words show the author's special attention to the Arabic language audience and the main problem here is that the author in the preface of all the book volumes emphasizes that this series can teach Persian to anyone who wants to learn Persian.
The weakness of communication competency has led to unrealistic and abnormal texts, examples and exercises. Therefore, this gives an impression which is far from the basic and applied principles of the pedagogical grammar.