EVALUATING PAKISTANI ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS THROUGH CORPUS-BASED FREQUENCY AND COLLOCATION ANALYSIS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63878/jalt2840Keywords:
Corpus Linguistics, Pakistani English Textbooks, Frequency Analysis, Collocations, ESL, Language PedagogyAbstract
This study investigates the lexical frequency and collocation patterns in Pakistani English textbooks used at the
secondary school level, employing a corpus-based approach to evaluate their linguistic authenticity,
representativeness, and pedagogical relevance. A small corpus was compiled from selected chapters of English
textbooks prescribed by the Punjab Textbook Board. The analysis focused on high-frequency words, lexical
coverage, and collocation patterns, compared against a reference corpus (British National Corpus). The
findings reveal a limited lexical range, frequent overuse of certain pedagogical words, and a lack of natural
collocations, which raises concerns about the communicative efficacy of these materials. The study emphasizes
the importance of integrating corpus-informed methods into textbook development to align ESL instruction with
real language use.

