Unit 24 · Selection and use of coursebook materials
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’ language skills. Selecting and using them means asking a set of questions about how attractive, well organised, culturally appropriate, suitable and motivating they are, and — if the answer to any of these is ‘No’ — replacing or adapting them.
◆How do we select and use coursebook materials?
CoursebookSee book. click to keep open · see glossary materials are all the materials in a coursebook package that we use in the classroom to present1. When the teacher introduces new language. Teachers present new language, sometimes by using the board and speaking to the whole class, or they might use a text which includes the new language for their presentation. See guided discovery approach, Presentati… click to keep open · see glossary and practise language, and to develop learners’ language skillsThe four language skills are listening, speaking, reading and writing. See develop skills, subskills, receptive skills, productive skills. click to keep open · see glossary.
A coursebook package usually includes a student’s book, a teacher’s bookSee book. click to keep open · see glossary and audio and/or video recordings. The teacher’s book often includes the tapescriptThe written version of the words learners hear when doing a listening activity. These can often be found in a teacher’s book or at the back of the learner’s book. click to keep open · see glossary, audio scriptSee tapescript, transcript. click to keep open · see glossary or transcriptThe written version of the words learners hear when doing a listening activity. These can often be found in a teacher’s book or at the back of the learner’s book. click to keep open · see glossary, i.e. the written version of exactly what the learners hear on these recordings. Often there is also a workbookSee book. click to keep open · see glossary or activity bookSee book. click to keep open · see glossary (a book with extra practice material), and there may also be a CD-ROM, material for use with an interactive whiteboard or extra material on a website.
Teachers often base their selection of teaching materials (coursebook or supplementary materialsThe books and other materials which teachers can use in addition to a coursebook, e.g. pronunciation practice materials. click to keep open · see glossary) on a ‘needsThe language, language skills or learning strategies a learner still has to learn in order to reach their goals, which are the things they want personally and professionally which are connected to their learning. For example, a learner might need to have good … click to keep open · see glossary analysis’, i.e. a study of learners’ level, language needs and interests, using questionnaires, interviews or diagnostic testsSee assessment, test. click to keep open · see glossary. This information helps to build up a class profileA description of the learners and information about their learning, including their age, ability, strengths and weaknesses in language and skills. click to keep open · see glossary (a description of all the learners in the class) and shows what the learners have in common and how they differ from each other. The teacher’s task is then to select the material that best matches this profile.
◆Key concepts — what questions should we ask when selecting teaching materials?
What questions should we ask when selecting teaching materials?
We may not be able to choose our coursebook, but we can still make choices about what materials in it to use. Decisions about whether – and how – to use the coursebook, or parts of it, will depend on the answers to a number of questions:
- Is the material visually attractive? Is it visually clear (e.g. using different colours, different fonts, headings, etc.)? Does the visual material help learners to understand context1. The situation in which language is used or presented; e.g. a story about a holiday experience could be used as the context to present and practise past tenses. Photographs can help to provide a context for a magazine article. 2. The words or phrases before … click to keep open · see glossary and meaning?
- Is the material well organised? Can you and your learners follow the ‘logic’ of the material and find your way quickly and easily around the page or the unit?
- 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 personal interests of your learners?
- Is the material at the right level? Does it provide a clear enough context and/or explanations for learners to understand new language?
- Does it give learners enough opportunities to use the language?
If the answer to any of these questions is ‘No’, then we have two choices:
- to replace the coursebook material with materials with the same focus/aimAims are not the same as procedures. click to keep open · see glossary from another book or resourceResources are available to the classroom, class size and number of hours of English in the course. click to keep open · see glossary, such as a teachers’ website or supplementary materials
- to adaptTo change a text or other material, so that it is suitable to use with a particular class. For example, a teacher thinks a text in his/her coursebook is too long and/or too difficult for his/her learners. He/she adapts the material by removing some of the more… click to keep open · see glossary the coursebook material, i.e. change it in some way to make it suitable for our learners.
◆Key concepts — ways of adapting material
There are a number of ways to adapt material that is not suitable for a particular teaching situation. Here are some ideas:
| Strategies | Problems | Possible solutions |
|---|---|---|
| Extending material | • The task or exercise is too short. • The learners need more practice. | • Write extra items, following the same pattern. |
| Shortening material | • The task or exercise is too long. • The learners don’t need so much practice. | • Use as much as you need, but do not feel you have to use it all. • Give different parts of the text or task to different learners. |
| Changing the methodology | • The task doesn’t suit the learners’ learning style. • You want a change of pace. • The coursebook often repeats the same kind of task. | • Change the interaction pattern, e.g. use a matching task as a mingling activity (in this case learners move around the class to find their partners). |
| Changing the level of the material | • The texts or tasks are too easy or too difficult. | • Make material more challenging, e.g. learners try to answer comprehension questions before reading. • Make material less challenging, e.g. break up a long text into shorter sections. |
| Reordering material | • The activities in the units in the book always follow the same sequence. • The learners need to learn or practise things in a different order. | • Change the order of the material, e.g. ask learners to cover up a page or part of a page, so that they focus on what you want them to do first. |
| Making use of all the resources in the book | • There is not enough practice material in a particular unit. • The learners need to revise particular items. • You want to preview material in a future unit. | • Use extra material from the book: grammar summaries, word lists, lists of irregular verbs, etc. • Give whole-book tasks, e.g. searching through the book for texts, pictures, language examples. |
◆Key concepts and the language teaching classroom
Read these tips and tick the ones which are most important for you:
- 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 personalisedWhen a teacher helps learners to connect new words, topics, texts or grammar to their own life; e.g. the teacher shows learners a picture of people swimming in the sea and asks the learners if they can swim; if they like swimming; if they have ever swum in the… click to keep open · see glossary for the learners will probably come from the teacher (or from the learners themselves). For example:
| Coursebook provides: | Teacher can provide additional: |
|---|---|
| • situation/context | • warmers |
| • pictures | • instructions |
| • dialogues (conversations between two people) and texts | • role-plays |
| • tasks and exercises | • homework tasks |
- If we plan to reorder the material in the coursebook, we must make sure that this is possible, 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 introduce varietyTo introduce different things such as different types of activities or tasks, language skills, interaction patterns, pacing or timing into a lesson. Teachers try to include variety in their lessons, so that learners stay interested. click to keep open · see glossary in one of the following areas: pace, interaction pattern, sequence of skills practice, level of difficulty, content, mood, etc.
- We should think about how to make material more attractive and interesting for learners and how to bring material to life, e.g. using mimeTo tell a story or to communicate actions or emotions using only body movements; not using words. Teachers might use mime to show learners what a word means. click to keep open · see glossary, pictures, realiaReal objects such as clothes, menus, timetables and leaflets that can be brought into the classroom for a range of purposes. For example, teachers might bring in different clothes to teach learners the words for those clothes (shirt, skirt, trousers etc.). click to keep open · see glossary (real objects such as clothes or food), etc.
- Units 14 and 15 for learner characteristics and needs
- Unit 25 for the selection and use of supplementary materials
- Unit 26 for the selection and use of aids
✎Follow-up activity
(Open answers)
Look at the extract from a coursebook for teenagers. How could you adapt this material if you wanted to use it with a group you are teaching? Think about the following criteria and use the questions in the Key concepts section on pages 156–7:
- Visual attractiveness
- Visual clarity
- Visual support to understand context and meaning
- Organisation
- Cultural appropriateness
- Language level
- Familiarity of context(s)
- Suitability for learners’ age, needs and interests
- Motivating topic(s) to suit age, gender, experience and personal interests of your learners
- Clarity of context and/or explanations for learners to understand new language
- Opportunities to use the language
Extract: Read and listen
[a] Look at the pictures. What do you think the text is about?
- A man who didn’t feel well on the platform of a New York subway station.
- A man who saved another man in the New York subway.
- The man who designed the platforms of the New York subway.
Read the text quickly and check your answer.
[b] Now read the text again and listen. Answer the questions.
- Why did Mr Hollopeter fall onto the platform and then the track?
- How deep was the space where Mr Hollopeter fell?
- Why did five subway carriages travel over the two men?
- Who was Mr Autrey worried about when the train stopped?
- What was the only thing that happened to Mr Autrey?
Subway hero
[The article is set as white text over a photograph and does not OCR legibly from the scan. Its opening lines read: “It was 12.45 p.m. on 2 January 2007. 50-year-old Wesley Autrey was waiting for the train at a subway station in New York…”; the body tells how he jumped onto the man who had fallen onto the track and held him down between the rails while five carriages passed over them.]
(from English in Mind, Level 1 Student’s Book (Second edition) by Herbert Puchta and Jeff Stranks, Cambridge University Press 2010)
Check your answers — answer key (book pp. 237–244)
Open answers
💡Reflect
- My students always complain if I leave things out or change the order in the coursebook, so I try to do everything in the order given in the book.
- I’d love to teach without a coursebook, but the students expect to have one.
- I’ve used the same coursebook for three years. I know how it works and I don’t want to change.
🔍Discovery activities
- What components are available with your current coursebook? Which ones do you use and why? What is missing? Make notes in your Teacher Portfolio.
- For further ideas on using coursebooks, look at Chapter 4 of Teaching Practice Handbook (Second edition) by Roger Gower, Diane Phillips and Steve Walters, Macmillan 1995 and Chapter 5, Part 2 of Planning Lessons and Courses by Tessa Woodward, Cambridge University Press 2001. For ideas on using other materials, look at Chapter 3, Section 1 of Learning Teaching (Second edition) by Jim Scrivener, Macmillan 2005 and Module 13, Units One, Two and Three of A Course in Language Teaching by Penny Ur, Cambridge University Press 1996.
- For ideas about teaching with few materials, or none, look at Teaching Unplugged by Luke Meddings and Scott Thornbury, Delta Publishing 2009 and http://www.thornburyscott.com/tu/portal.htm
✎TKT practice tasks
These multiple-choice tasks are exactly as in the book, but interactive: pick your answers, check your score, and retry anytime. The scoring uses the official answer key from the back of the book.
📖Glossary terms in this unit
Key terms highlighted in this unit — study them on the flashcards page.
Editorial note — OCR and reconstruction notes for this unit
Book pages 156–160 (pdf 161–165). Page 160 (pdf 165) carries only practice task 24. The two-page adaptation table (p. 157) was read from the page image: its rows and bullet wording are complete, but the OCR had merged the ‘Possible solutions’ cells, so column membership was assigned from the scan. The tips table on p. 158 (‘Coursebook provides:’ / ‘Teacher can provide additional:’) was rebuilt from the image. The Follow-up extract (p. 159) is a photograph of a coursebook spread printed small inside the page; its rubric, prediction options and five comprehension questions are transcribed verbatim, but the body of the article ‘Subway hero’ is white text over a photograph and cannot be read reliably from the scan, so it is represented by a bracketed note quoting only the legible opening lines — check against the page image if a full transcription is wanted. The printed ‘REFLECTION’ and ‘DISCOVERY ACTIVITIES’ labels are recorded in reflectNote/discoveryNote.