Abstract:

In foreign language educational systems of Turkey and Germany, as in most other countries in the world, textbooks are used as a primary source of instruction in public schools. The books in concern are selected by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) in Turkey while they might vary across federal states in Germany which has its own education programme, schools and standards although overall educational policies are set by the Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). This study was motivated to compare EFL textbooks introduced public secondary schools in Turkey and the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany to reveal whether reading comprehension texts in the two books significantly differ with regard to lexical density (complexity) and readability. Data were compiled from reading texts in these books, and quantitatively analysed through an online text analysis programme. The findings showed that both textbooks include reading texts with high lexical density and readability. Besides, EFL textbook used in Turkey contains comprehension texts with higher lexical density and readability than the one used in Germany. The study presents a couple of practical implications on these findings, and concludes with a few suggestions for further research.

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