The paper aims to explore how far English textbooks in Pakistan embody Pakistan and its culture. In this connection, the reading passages and pictures/images of the textbooks taught at secondary level in the government schools of Punjab were analyzed. It was a mixed method study and the specific method employed was content analysis. For this purpose all the reading passages of both the textbooks were firstly categorized and quantified into three categories; Source Culture/s, Other Culture/s and Neutral and then the cultural elements of Source Culture/s were discussed qualitatively using an adapted checklist. The results of the study reveal that the English textbook of class 9 has 12 passages out of which 75% have Source cultural elements, 8.83% have cultural elements of Other Culture/s and 16.66% are Neutral. As far as the English textbook of class 10 is concerned, there are 13 reading passages out of which 23.07% have Source cultural elements, 15.38% have cultural elements of Other Culture/s and 61.53% are Neutral. The findings of the study show that English, being an international language and as a result of globalization, has become compulsory for people belonging to different countries to learn it. However, in order to retain their identity, they try to appropriate English language to underpin their own culture/s through English language used in the textbooks of Pakistan.

This research aimed at analysing the Grade VIII English textbook of Punjab Textbook Board against one of the five competencies, the Reading and Thinking skills and identifying the satisfaction level of Grade 8 students with their textbook for the fulfilment of this competency. The main parameters of the content analysis were Competency (C), Standards (S), Benchmarks (B) and SLOs. The data was collected through content analysis (of the textbook) and survey questionnaire. The student satisfaction level was measured with the help of an instrument comprising 10 statements on a 5-point Likert scale. The questionnaire respondents were 1440 students of Grade VIII studying in public schools of Lahore. The results of content analysis and student survey showed that the textbook partly meets the requirements related to the selected competency. It is therefore recommended that the English textbook of grade VIII should be updated in congruence with the SLOs of the selected competency.