Selection and use of coursebook material

UNIT 24

Selection and use of coursebookmaterials

What is coursebook material?

• Coursebook materials are all the materials in a coursebook package that we use in the classroom to present and practise language, and to develop learners' languageskills.

A coursebook package usually includes:

• student's book;
• teacher's book;
• audio and/or video recordings.

The teacher's book often includes:

• the tapescript;
• audio script or transcript; (the written version of exactly what the learners hearon these recordings);
• workbook or activity book (a book withextra practice material);
• CD-ROM, material for use with aninteractive whiteboard or extra material on a website.

Needs analysis:

*to build up a class profile and show that the learners have in common and how they differ from each other

• questionnaires;
• interviews;
• diagnostic tests.

What questions should we ask when selecting teaching materials?

• Is the material visually attractive? Is it visually clear?
• Is the material well organised?
• Is it culturally appropriate? Will the context(s) be familiar to learners?
• Is it suitable for your learners' age and their needs and interests?Will the topic(s) be motivating to suit the age, gender, experience and personalinterests of your learners?
• Is the material at the right level? Does it provide a clear enough context and/orexplanations for learners to understand new language?
• Does it give learners enough opportunities to use the language?

solution options:

• to replace the coursebook material with materials with the same focus/aim fromanother book or resource, such as a teachers' website or supplementary materials;
• to adapt the coursebook material, i.e. change it in some way to make it suitable forour learners.

Ideas for different teaching situations:

Key concepts

• There may be good reasons for leaving out part of a unit, or even a whole unit.But the coursebook is one of the main sources of learning (and revision) for our learners. So they may find it confusing if we do this too often.
• The coursebook will normally provide the main content for a lesson, while material that needs to be more personalised for the learners will probably come from theteacher (or from the learners themselves).
• If we plan to reorder the material in the coursebook, we must make sure that this ispossible, i.e. that a task/exercise does not depend on a previous one.
• We can change the order of activities in the coursebook in order to introducevariety in one of the following areas: pace, interaction pattern, sequence of skillspractice, level of difficulty, content, mood, etc.We should think about how to make material more attractive and interesting forlearners and how to bring material to life, e.g. using mime , pictures, realia (realobjects such as clothes or food),

Feedback

• What is coursebook material?
• What does the coursebook package include?
• Name what is included in the teacher's book.
• Which solution of the teacher’s situation you will recommend to use? Which one do you appreciate the most?