An-Najah Staff

Our inability to bridge the gap between theory and practice has been the single most important reason why we as teachers of English have failed to teach this language effectively in Palestine as well as in most non native English speaking countries. The English curriculum in schools is based on the Communicative Approach. The textbooks are carefully designed in accordance with the goals and principles of this teaching method. They integrate the four language skills so that the students, in theory, learn to listen, read, speak and write concomitantly. Practice is provided through dialogues, songs, vocabulary and other exercises and the books themselves are graded in a series so that the progress of the learners matches their age and intellectual and experiential levels. The general layout of the books is attractive and they are profusely and colorfully illustrated in an effort to stimulate interest and a desire to learn. In spite of that, the majority of those fed on the new series have not been more successful in learning to use the English language competently than their predecessors who were raised on the previous Petra series based on older learning theories.