Modern language teaching has liberated itself from the rigidity of traditional teaching methods, which imposed a single coursebook as the exclusive resource. While the autonomy of educators in relation to coursebooks is advocated, English teachers in Slovakia continue to demonstrate reluctance in producing original teaching materials or adapting authentic materials that reflect English usage in real-life contexts.

The objective of this study is to evaluate three ELT coursebooks, the most prevalent in the Slovak educational context, each published by a different UK-based publishing house, to ascertain their efficacy in preparing Slovak school-leavers to achieve language competence at level B2 and the methodology employed.

The theoretical framework encompasses evaluation criteria related to the external and internal stages of evaluation. The external evaluation will focus on the organisation of the materials and the examination of the claims made for the materials by the publishers with respect to the intended audience, the proficiency level, the context and presentation of language items and their usefulness for preparing the school-leavers for their final examination and other criteria to arrive at a decision on whether these three coursebooks are potentially appropriate and can be under a more detailed investigation. The internal stage will include an analysis of the extent to which all the examined factors in the external examination match up with the internal consistency of the materials claimed by the publishers.

All the data achieved from both stages of analysis will be presented in the article and discussed. An analysis of three coursebooks will enable the comparison of the claims and the extent to which coursebook materials reflect the learners’ needs and the country’s requirements for students who wish to be tested at level B2.

Keywords: Evaluation of the coursebooks, external criteria, internal criteria, reference level B2.