Learning English in this globalized world is of great importance because of a variety of reasons including educational necessities, economical developments affect-ing all the countries, and sociological changes happening via easy transportation and cultural exchanges. All of these necessitate knowing English as it is the lingua franca language. As Çelik and Kasapo?lu (2014: 3) state, English takes greater attention than any other languages owing to being the language of communication. One of the mostly used materials in teaching English are coursebooks. And using coursebooks is not a brand new idea because coursebooks are most widely used materials for educational needs and as a source of information throughout the history. Therefore, it is crucial for teachers or coursebook designers to assess its usefulness. To state it differently, evaluation is the key to select an appropriate coursebook.

In Turkey, coursebooks are prepared by freelance writers and delivered to schools by MONE, so MONE is the main addressee and arbiter in designing and renewing.  The innovation in the coursebooks published in 2012-2013 by MONE is claimed to be designed with the idea of integrating the four language skills. However, the question is: Is it really like the way it is said? Moreover, there might be a bias while integrating skills, which results in differences in students’ skills develop-ment. While the writers claim these coursebooks to be integrated enough, there might be one basic skill that might be developed more than others. Therefore, this study has been carried out to find whether there is any one of the skills that is developed more than the others at the end of the teaching process. Most of the authors, teachers, scholars, etc. focus on teaching the four language skills in integration but almost none of them question whether they are successful in fulfilling this aim; therefore, this study is intended to be a great example for all the relevant authority.

Daily use of English necessitates the interconnection of all the four skills (listening, reading, speaking, and writing) and the language components (vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation); in other words, a must for communicating with the others in everyday life requires us to use the four skills in integration and in a simultaneous way rather than using in isolation. As Cunningsworth (1984: 86) says “In the actual language use, one skill is rarely used in isolation… Numerous communicative situations in real life involve integrating two or more skills”… For example, when you are speaking, you cannot claim that you are also not listening to others who are listening and sharing their ideas. Hersan (1998: 22) states in an attempt to illustrate these communicative situations:

Nowadays, communication is the major aim for learning a foreign language. In daily life, these skills are seen in integration, for example, after reading a letter, usually an answer to this letter is written. So in the classroom the activities should be taught in integration to arrive at ease in communication.  (as cited in Akar and Baturay, 2007: 17).

Similarly, Harmer (1983: 47) states teaching the skills in isolation is ridiculous and illustrates the use of skills in daily life as follows:

Someone who listens to a lecture may take notes and then write a report. The same person might also describe the lecture to his friends and follow it up by reading an article the lecturer suggested (as cited in Akar and Baturay, 2007: 20).

In addition, teaching the language skills and language components is a broad area, so there are several varying studies in ELT. Besides, there  are  also  several  course-

books claiming to integrate the four skills and language components, which leads us to carry on evaluation studies. However, in Turkey this is not the case; there are limited studies on coursebook evaluation and integrating the four skills. Even the studies carried on about course-book evaluation fall short of focusing on integrating the four skills, because they mainly concentrate on explaining several variables in one coursebook evaluation study instead (Coskuner, 2002; Öztürk and Yurttagüller, 2003; Özdemir, 2007; Ezici, 2006; Oflaz, 2009; Solak, 2011; Taylan, 2013).

Among these scholars, Baturay and Akar (2007) aimed to show the differences between teaching reading in a discrete skill program and in an integrated skills program. They assessed reading in a different point of view, which caused a new category of the skills to come into existence: grammatical, functional, and thematic integra-tion. They investigated randomly selected coursebooks used at Turkish schools to find out to what extent they were integrated. Throughout the study, they underpinned this new evaluation model of integrating skills. As a result, the researchers proposed an ideal model for integrating the four skills in coursebooks.

As it is clearly illustrated, a trend toward skill integration has blossomed recently. Curriculum designers, MONE in our case, have taken a language approach where reading, for instance, is treated as one of two or more integrated skills. The scholars have realized that by emphasizing what learners can do with the language, rather than using the forms of language or just learning the structures or the rules, EFL instructors can incorpo-rate all the language skills into the classroom instruction. As Brown (2000) said, the richness of integrated-skill courses gives students greater motivation that converts to better retention of principles of effective speaking, listening, reading, and writing (as cited in Vernier, et al., 269). Therefore, the aim of the coursebooks is to help teachers’ instruction and students’ learning with this idea of integrating skills in practice. Somehow, the students might develop one of these four skills over the others as a result of coursebooks, classroom activities, teachers’ way of instruction, etc. Therefore, it is important to find the underlying reasons for any one of the skills’ development over others if there were any skill developed more. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to find whether there is any one of the skills that is developed more than the others at the end of the teaching process.

In order to investigate this, the researcher has the following research questions:

1. To what extent is the coursebook Yes You Can A1.2

effective according to the presentation of the four skills?

2. Is there a significant difference between the development of the four skills of the students  before  andafter the process?

3. Is there a significant difference between the development of the four skills in Yes You Can A1.2?

4. What might be the underlying reasons that lie behind the development of one of the four skills over others if there were any of the skills that is developed more than the other skills at the end of the teaching process?

Design

The study is both qualitative and quantitative. A mixed and experimental study has been carried out according to a mixed design. Creswell (2006) defines mixed method as a method which “focuses on collecting, analyzing, and mixing both qualitative and quantitative data in a single study or series of studies” (Creswell, 2006: 5). Therefore, the reason why the mixed method has been chosen is to mix the qualitative and quantitative data to have more reliable results.

Participants

The participants of the study are 9^th and 10^th grade students studying Yes You Can A1.2 at schools including the Anatolian High Schools, High Schools and Multi-program High Schools, and English teachers teaching Yes You Can A1.2. In selecting the participants, the convenience sampling method was used because the target population was large and not accessible. Besides, the participants were selected on the voluntary basis. In the piloting, a total number of 231 students participated in the achievement test; 115 students and 15 teachers filled in the questionnaires. For the main study, the test was administered to 87 9^th grade students; the questionnaires were applied to 121 students and to 106 English teachers.

The interviews were conducted with randomly selected 25 9^th grade students among the participants of the main application of the questionnaire and the test. The teachers participating in these interviews were from different high schools in ?uhut, Afyonkarahisar. The number of the teachers participating in the interviews is low because the number of the English teachers in ?uhut is limited.

Instruments

Pre-test and post-test. This achievement test (Appendix 1) was prepared by the researcher to identify and test students’ ability in four language skills. So, the test was prepared under five categories: listening, reading, writing, speaking and function. Each of the five categories was graded in a balanced way.

The test was also prepared by taking the ‘can- do- statements’- provided by CEFR- of Yes You Can A1.2 into consideration. In other words, the test was prepared according to the principles and general outcomes (Appendix 3) of CEFR for Yes You Can A1.2. The reason why all the questions were prepared in this perspective is that the coursebook itself was prepared according to the principles of CEFR.

Besides, there are different types of questions in the test because the more varied the type of the questions is, the more it is for the benefit of students who has different learning styles and intelligence types.

Reading, writing and speaking parts were evaluated by two graders and their average point were taken into consideration and for the assessment of open-ended questions, speaking and writing parts, criterion for the open- ended questions, a speaking rubric adapted from a website and a writing checklist were prepared by the researcher in order for the evaluators to see what they evaluate clearly. As a result of the main application, the correlations between the graders of the reading parts, writing parts and the speaking parts were calculated and found to be above 0.90; which shows that the criterion, rubrics and checklists have worked well.

Questionnaires. To gather data about students’ and teachers’ perceptions on the efficacy of Yes You Can A1.2 in terms of four skills, two questionnaires (Appendix 4: Students’ Questionnaire and Appendix 6: Teachers’ Questionnaire) were developed. Before preparing the questionnaires, the literature was reviewed. Then, a pilot study was conducted to assess the clarity of the items and to ensure the reliability and the validity.

The questionnaires consisted of three-point Likert-scale items, rating questions and an open-ended item since these types of items are a useful and effective means of obtaining data about people’s opinions. The response continuum was “agree, neutral, disagree”. The original version of the questionnaires was in English, but the student questionnaire was translated into Turkish by two English teachers. Two other English teachers translated back the Turkish into English. The aim for such a back translation is to ensure that the items are clear for those who will participate in the study. After that, the student questionnaire was administered in Turkish because it was thought that the students would have some difficulty in understanding the statements and the questions and even might provide the researcher with incorrect data.

The student and the teacher questionnaire consisted of the same questions to ensure the balance between the teachers and the students’ understanding of the items and to compare the results of them for identifying the similarities and the differences between their answers.

Focus group interviews. 9 teachers and 25 students were interviewed to obtain qualitative data to support the quantitative data obtained via the questionnaires. The interview questions were prepared and piloted considering the key points in the questionnaires. The interview questions aimed to gather data to elaborate on the key issues about the four skills integration in Yes You Can A1.2. Besides, the interviews were used for triangulating the study through gathering detailed information.

Procedure

The data collection procedure took place during the academic years 2012 - 2013 and 2013 - 2014.

In 2012 - 2013, the piloting of the test was done with 231 9^th grade students. As a result of the piloting, the test was revised for the main study which would be carried out during the 2^nd term of 2013 - 2014. The reason why the study was carried out in the 2^nd term is that the selected level was appropriate for use in the 2^nd term. Generally, in the 1^st term, A1.1 level was preferred and in the 2^nd term, A1.2 level was used as a continuation.

In the 1^st term of 2013 - 2014, the piloting of the student questionnaire was done. The questionnaire was administered to 115 10th grade students and 15 teachers. After the data was collected, the questionnaires were analyzed by using IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 21. As a result of the analysis, necessary changes were made and the final form of the questionnaires was formed.

At the beginning of the 2^nd term of 2013 - 2014, the pre-test was applied to 87 9^th grade students. At the end  of  the  term,  the  post-test was applied to the same group. After the students finished the post-test, the student questionnaire was administered to the group.

While examining the questionnaires, it was found out that 71 of them filled in the questionnaire appropriately. Meanwhile, a colleague from another school applied the questionnaire to 50 students in her school, all of whom participated voluntarily. The reason why the questionnaire was applied to an additional group was to increase the generalizability of the findings.

Immediately after the administration of the questionnaire, a focus group interview with the randomly selected 25 9^th grade students among the participants of the questionnaire and the test was conducted and recorded with smart phone.

On the same day, a focus group interview with teachers again among the participants of the questionnaire was also conducted and recorded with smart phone.

At the end of the 2^nd term of 2013 - 2014, the teacher questionnaire was filled in online by 106 teachers from different high schools in Turkey who taught Yes You Can A1.2 at least one semester, by this way who were familiar with the coursebook. In order to reach the teachers, the online platforms and ELT groups on Facebook were used. The questionnaire was designed on Google Forms and was shared on ELT platforms at some intervals to attract the attention of English teachers. Approximately in 2 months’ time, the number of the teachers filling the questionnaire exceeded 100, which is thought to be enough for the generalizability of the findings.

Data analysis

The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. While the tests and the questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively using programmes such as Microsoft Excel and IBM SPSS, the interviews were analyzed qualitatively.

For the analysis of the pre and post - tests, students’ points were entered into the Microsoft Excel by the researcher to make the necessary calculations. After that, this data were analyzed by a statistician to find out the reliability and the validity of the test results. After it was proved to be reliable via the analysis on IBM SPSS, the mean scores were calculated.

For the analysis of the questionnaires, necessary calculations were carried out on IBM SPSS and Microsoft Excel. The data were analyzed using mean scores, frequencies, and percentages. For each part of the questionnaires, the mean scores, standard devia-tions, frequencies and percentages of the answers ‘agree-neutral-disagree’ were calculated, tabulated and charted. IBM SPSS was also used to calculate the reliability of the questionnaires.

For the final form of the data analysis, a four-way analysis was carried out by combining the results of the pre – posttest compari-son, questionnaires, interviews and the researcher’s in-depth analysis concerning the integration of the four skills in Yes You Can A1.2. The aim of such a design is to triangulate the study to find out whether the students’ test results; the teachers’ and students’ answers to the questionnaire and to the interview are consistent.

Qualitative data collected via interviews were transcribed, content - analyzed and grouped. Then, the student interview and the teacher interview data were compared.

As aforementioned previously, this thesis has four research questions, so the analysis and the interpretationwill be done under four headings.

First research question - To what extent is the coursebook Yes You Can A1.2 effective according to the presentation of the four skills?

This question aims to reveal whether the coursebook is effective in terms of bettering students’ four language skills and whether there is progression or regression in them. Besides, it aims to find out to what extent there is increase or decrease in students’ four skills development.

First of all, the students’ pre-test results were at normal levels; students could just answer nearly half of the questions correctly. When the mean of the students’ points in the pre-test (54.94 out of 100) is examined, it is seen that students answered a little more than half of the questions before using Yes You Can A1.2. When the mean of the students’ points in the post-test (62.82 out of 100) is examined, it is seen that there is almost 8 points increase in students’ test results after using Yes You Can A1.2, which signals this coursebook helps learners better their four skills. This can be seen in Table 1.

 

 

As this coursebook helped students increase their test points in all the four skills and in the function part after they used it for one term, it is possible to say that Yes You Can A1.2 is effective in terms of helping students better their four skills and grammar knowledge. The test results are also supported by the students’ opinions. When the questionnaire findings are examined for each part, it is seen that students are inclined to state their positive feelings, which signals that they are content with the efficacy of the coursebook in terms of developing four language skills. Moreover, as can be seen in Figures 1 and 2, almost half of the students find this coursebook sufficient and more than half of them find it appropriate in developing the four skills.

 

 

 

However, students in the interviews state varying opinions about its efficacy. They stated negative feelings for the four skills, grammar and content parts, but this was done most probably with their focus on demerits of the coursebook; they just concentrated on the negative sides of it.

For the teachers, this coursebook is not effective in terms of developing students’ four skills because they stated their negative feelings about it. According to the teachers, this coursebook does not lead to development in all the four skills and grammar. As can be seen in Figure 1, when they were asked whether this coursebook is sufficient in terms of developing students’ four skills, 82.1% of them opposed to it. As can be seen in Figure 2, when they were asked whether this coursebook is appropriate in terms of developing students’ four skills, 75.5% stated it  is  inappropriate.   During  the  interviews, the teachers just talked about its inefficiency in developing all the four skills.

If the students’ and the teachers’ opinions are compared, it is seen that they hold different views. Whereas most of the students talk about the efficacy of this coursebook, a great number of teachers talked about its inefficiency. There is dilemma between students and teachers; however, to use the coursebook effectively and benefit from it efficiently, there should be a consensus between the students and the teacher. When the fact that teachers have more pedagogical knowledge about the efficacy of four language skills and experience with a variety of coursebooks is taken into consideration, it can be said that teachers are better at determining whether a coursebook is effective in terms of developing the four skills.

Second research question - Is there a significant difference between the development of the four skills of the students before and after the process?

This research question aims to reveal whether there is any difference between students’ pre and post-test results.

The average points of all the participants in the listening parts of the pre-test is 9.20; it is 11.02 in the post-test. There is 1.82 points increase in students’ performance in listening. The average points of all the participants in the reading parts of the pre-test is 8.77; it is 10.74 in the post-test. There is 1.97 points increase in students’ performance in reading. The average points of all the participants in the function parts of the pre-test is 12.24; it is 13.31 in the post-test. There is 1.07 points increase in students’ performance in the function parts. The average points of all of the participants in the writing parts of the pre-test is 13.05; it is 14.20 in the post-test. There is 1.15 points increase in students’ performance in writing. The average points of all of the participants in the speaking parts of the pre-test is 11.69; it is 13.55 in the post-test. There is 1.86 points increase in students’ performance in speaking. In total, students’ 54.94 points average score increased to 62.82 points average score in the post-test, which shows that Yes You Can A1.2 helped students increase their test points.

It is clear that students increased their points in all the parts. They increased their reading performance in the post-test by 22.46%, their listening performance by 21.73%, speaking performance by 15.91%, writing performance by 8.81% and the grammar knowledge by 8.74%. This increase can be acceptable in terms of considering the success of this coursebook, but the percentage of increase can be better than  these  percentages. The percentages can be seen in Chart 3. Additionally, the fact that students come to high school with some knowledge and proficiency in the four skills and in grammar should also be kept in mind while interpreting the results. Almost in all the parts of the pre-test, students answered more or less half of the questions correctly, which shows that students might have already been familiar with some of the themes and topics of the coursebook and the tests.

Third research question - Is there a significant difference between the development of the four skills in Yes You Can A1.2?

This question aims to reveal whether there is any one of the skills that is developed more than the others after using Yes You Can A1.2.

It is already revealed that there is an increase in all parts of the test, but providing the increase in each part of the test in percentages gives us more clear ideas. Therefore, when the percentage of increase in each language skill is calculated, it is seen that the skill students increased their points most is reading with 22.46%, which signals the probability that the main focus in this coursebook is on reading; in other words, that this coursebook is reading dominant or reading biased. As of the second comes listening with 21.73% increase, which can be a signal for the probability that this coursebook might also be listening dominant or listening biased. The percentages are given in Figure  3.

 

 

If we look at the opinions of the students and the teachers in the questionnaires, it can be seen that the students are content with the efficacy of this coursebook in developing their reading skill, but that teachers are not content with it. If the students’ and teachers’ answers are compared for the listening skill development, the same observation can be made: Whereas students like the listening parts, teachers do not. As students and teachers hold different views in the questionnaire, the interview findings are of great significance.

In the interviews students stated that there are a lot of reading texts in the coursebook. This was also supported by most of the teachers. Teachers stated that there are a lot of good reading texts although the activities provided with them are not enough. Teachers also highlighted there is nothing wrong with the reading texts as they are colored and interesting. Teachers also pinpointed that the level of the reading texts and the reading activities is also acceptable and appropriate. Although students and teachers generally fall apart in the questionnaires, in the interviews they generally stated similar opinions. In short, both of the groups find the reading parts  acceptable  and appropriate in terms of developing reading skill.

As of the last, the researcher asked students and teachers to order the four skills according to the duration spent on each of them from the most to the least in Yes You Can A1.2 in English lessons. To this question, both the students and the teachers, although the number of students and teachers participating in the questionnaires are different, state that most of the time in Yes You Can A1.2 is spent on the reading skill. Both most of the students and most of the teachers put the reading skill in the 1^st place out of the four skills when they consider the time spent on the activities in each part of the coursebook. In the interviews, students talked about Yes You Can A1.2’s inefficacy in developing the four skills and added that this coursebook is reading dominant although it tries to develop other skills. Teachers also emphasized that it is a reading biased coursebook. Meanwhile, teachers added that it also sprinkled some speaking and writing activities in it perfunctorily. 

Fourth research question - What might be the underlying reasons that lie behind the development of one of the four skills over others if there were any of the skills that were developed more than the other skills at the end of the teaching process?

This question was prepared in case there may be bias in terms of teaching the four language skills, which is also the starting point and claim of this article. To answer this question, the researcher used a teacher questionnaire, a student interview and a teacher interview after it was found out that this book might be reading skill dominant or listening skill dominant because students increased their points in these parts of the tests. The students and the teachers listed several possible reasons for the inefficacy of this coursebook in developing all the four skills.

Reasons according to the students. The possible reasons for the students can be summarized as:

1. This coursebook includes some interesting songs, games, puzzles, etc., but students stated that they do not focus on these kinds of things.

2. Students do not do the speaking activities in pairs; instead they do them with their teachers, so there is more teacher-student interaction rather than student-student interaction the activities of the coursebook necessitate.

3. As the students do not speak with each other, they think they do not understand the language.

4. The activities are not daily routine activities or students do not understand if they were actually daily routine activities.

5. There is not enough vocabulary leading students to speak because most of the students think they need vocabulary to speak.

6. Students do not understand the listening texts, which leads the teachers not to do the activities.

7. There are not enough additional materials such as films, animations, etc. provided by the coursebook.

Reasons according to the teachers. The possible reasons for the teachers can be summarized as:

1. The levels A1.1 and A1.2 are almost the same, which leads students to boredom.

2. This coursebook teaches English to students as if they were learning their mother language, but the students are not acquiring their mother language; they are learning a new foreign language.

3. You cannot create the daily life in the classroom.

4. Students do not feel the necessity to learn a foreign language.

5. The coursebooks are not prepared by the teachers working at schools; instead they are prepared by the academicians who have not enough experience in the classroom atmosphere. Most of the things in the coursebook are utopic.

6. Peer correction is a nice idea, but it leads to incorrect learning.

7. Students are not familiar with the characters in the activities, so they do not attract their attention.

8. Instead of the activities in the coursebook, the teachers copy some additional activities that attract students’ attention.

9. This coursebook does not generate active students, instead it generates active teachers.

The researcher also gathered some information about teachers’ teaching methods and perceptions about teaching English, which are thought to be possible reasons for the development of one of the four skills over others.

1. There is a group of 52% teachers who agree or stay neutral to the opinion that teachers should focus on teaching grammar.

2. There is a group of 16% teachers who disagree or stay neutral to the opinion that teachers should provide opportunities for students to make them use English through meaningful tasks and activities.

3. There is a group of 43% teachers who agree or stay neutral to the opinion that they do not speak English in the classroom.

4. There is a group of 11% teachers who disagree or stay neutral to the opinion that exams should be based on four skills.

5. There is a group of 12% teachers who agree or stay neutral to the opinion that teaching grammar is more important than teaching four skills.

6. There is a group of 26% teachers who agree or stay neutral to the opinion that form is more important than usage while teaching grammar.

7. There is a group of 44% teachers who disagree or stay neutral to the opinion that structures can be neglected while teaching grammar, instead that usage should be emphasized.

8. There is a group of 11% teachers who agree or stay neutral to the opinion that s/he neglects reading in the exams.

9. There is a group of 36% teachers who agree or stay neutral to the opinion that s/he neglects writing in the exams.

10.There is a group of 74% teachers who agree or stay neutral to the opinion that s/he neglects listening in the exams.

11. There is a group of 83% teachers who agree or stay neutral to the opinion that s/he neglects speaking in the exams.

 

 

The studies done in the four language skills integration and coursebook evaluation have been presented in literature review. Thus, their findings will be discussed in this part in comparison with the findings of this study.

There are a number of coursebook evaluation studies, some of which aim to find the perceptions of the teachers, students and sometimes both in the same study while some of which aim to compare the two similar coursebooks in terms of the same criteria.

In her study Özdemir (2007) aimed to find out how the fourth grade students and their teachers evaluated the coursebook ‘Time for English 4’ in terms of purpose, approach, visual design, presentation of vocabulary and language, practice activities and exercises, supporting sources, and supporting materials. At the end, it was found out that both teachers and student found the coursebook effective in terms of meeting their language needs, but that students were a little more satisfied. As Cunningsworth (1995: 15) claims, coursebooks should correspond to both learners’ and teachers’ needs in addition to its match with the aims and objectives of the language teaching programme. Therefore, this is the desired situation in the application of newly developed coursebooks, which is contrary to what is found in this study; students and teachers have not expressed similar or same opinions.

In her study Ezici (Çak?t) (2006) aimed to assess the effectiveness of “New Bridge to Success” on the basis of eleven criteria from the perspectives of teachers and students. At the end, it was concluded both the teachers and the students felt negative about most of the characteristics of the coursebook. In addition, both of the participant groups mentioned the reading passages needed simplification in terms of vocabulary load and structures, level of the coursebook needed to be made appropriate for that age group and that the materials in the coursebook need to consider the style preferences of the visual, auditory and kinesthetic students. These are the negative aspects uttered by the students and the teachers. Nevertheless, it was found out that the coursebook was up-to-date. This is the positive aspect again uttered both by students and teachers. In such studies in which  students  and  teachers  hold  similar  or same opinions, it was easy to reach some conclusions, which is again just contradictory to what is come across in the present study.

In another study on New Bridge to Success for Grade 9 Elementary, Dilek (2009) investigated vocabulary teaching aspects of reading texts. She distributed a questionnaire to students and teachers and she aimed to find out how students and teachers evaluate the coursebook according to the reading skill, how they evaluate the reading texts according to vocabulary teaching aspect, the techniques the teachers use to teach vocabulary while reading, the techniques the students use when they come across with an unknown word and the techniques the students use to learn a new vocabulary. The results revealed that both the teachers and the students are negative about most of the characteristics of the reading texts and vocabulary aspects. This result also differs from what is found in this study because teachers and students stated their negative feelings in conformity with each other as opposed to the present study.

In a similar study, Taylan (2013) aimed to find out the effectiveness of ‘Breeze 9’ in terms of following catego-ries: aims, grammar teaching, communicative activities and its presentation, and needs and interests. At the end, it was found out that there was not a consensus between the students and the teachers: the students claimed that the coursebook is highly effective while the teachers claimed just the opposite. The findings of Taylan’s study and this study bear a resemblance: Like Taylan (2013), it was concluded that students are content with Yes You Can A1.2 in terms of its efficacy in helping them better their four skills while teachers state that it is not effective.

As of the last, Çelik and Kasapo?lu (2014) conducted a study on recent curricular changes in English teaching in Turkey, which tries to get the opinions of elementary school administrators. They try to assess the efficiency of the new curriculum, which is of great importance for this study, too because the evaluation of a coursebook used in the high schools in terms of their efficiency in teaching the four language skills in integration is the continuation of the processes initiated in their primary and elementary education. Therefore, the efficiency of the curriculum of the primary and the elementary education is significant for the development in the latter stages.

There are some other studies which focus on evaluation of language programmes or coursebooks and four skills integration in these coursebooks, but almost none of them focused on integrated skills bias with the perspective similar to this article. Therefore, the findings gathered about Yes You Can A1.2 widely used in high schools in Turkey provide teachers, scholars and some other relevant authorities with a new perspective for designing coursebooks.

This study has been done to find out the efficacy of Yes You Can A1.2 in terms of developing the four language skills equally, to investigate whether there is any one of the four skills that is developed more than the other three language skills, and to find out the reasons for this if there were any.

In conclusion, it has been found out that Yes You Can A1.2 does not develop all the four language skills equally because of a variety of reasons aforementioned in the discussion part. Instead, it can be claimed that this coursebook might not be integrating the four language skills as planned and as thought by its writers and by MONE.

In addition, it was found out that the skill developed more than the other language skills is reading because students’ test results in the reading test have increased, and students and teachers, in the questionnaires and the interviews, stated that Yes You Can A1.2 develops reading more and that it is reading dominant or reading biased.

The author(s) have not declared any conflict of interests.