Using coursebooks effectively

RADES
DECEMBER 2016
 Haven’t you heard this?
A. Half the B. The stronger students get C. We’ve got a
students have bored if I spend time explaining syllabus to get
finished an to the weaker ones. through but most
exercise when the
of the students
other half have
are already
only just begun.
behind.

J. When I’m doing pair or group work I don’t know whether it’s better
to put strong and weak students together or put students of the same
level in the groups.
 Allwright (1982): Textbooks are too inflexible and
generally reflect the pedagogic, psychological, and
linguistic preferences and biases of their authors.

 The learners are put through the “ same hoops” in a

“ single learning template” and the teacher expects
the learners to “ adjust to learning when the learning
should really be adjusted to the learners” .
 “ The good teacher is constantly adapting. He adapts
when he adds an example not found in the book or when
he telescopes an assignment by having students prepare
“only the even numbered items”. He adapts when he
refers to an exercise covered earlier, or when he
introduces a supplementary picture…” (Madsen &
Bowen, 1978)
 Adopt vs Adapt

 Adhering/ adopting to the textbooks means that

whatever textbooks are provided to the teachers, they
consider those as the authority, thus, few or no
adaptations to text are made.

 Course books, no matter how good they are, have been

written for the average group of learners and your
group of learners have their own unique learning
differences, interests, needs and objectives.
 Materials adaptation refers to the application of some
strategies to make the textbook more effective and
flexible. The process of changing or adjusting the
various parts of a course book is closely related to the
reality of dealing with learners in the dynamic
environment of the classroom.
 What to adapt?

 Materials / input
 Objectives ( immediate / long-term …)
 Approach – method – technique
 Teaching styles and strategies
 Processes
 tasks – activities
 Assignments
 Pace
 A product
 How to adapt?

 Adding , including expanding and extending

 Deleting , including substracting and abridging
 Modifying , including rewriting and restructuring
 Simplifying
 Reordering
 Hence, the need to …

 to adapt materials to be equally effective for

each student.
 Students differ in:
 prior knowledge
 learning style
 intelligence
 The Question

 Why should teachers reinvent activities

when publishers have already developed
appropriate instructional sequences, lesson
designs, and activities for each subject?
 Reflect about it
• I plan my lessons to respondto my learners´
needs, so I never use a textbook.
• I always plan my lessons following the
suggestions in the teacher´s book.
• I use all the materials in every unit in
the order given in the book.
• I use a textbook, but I change most of it so
that learners don´t get bored.
• I have got a good textbook and have not got
time to adapt any of it.
 Disadvantages of Using a Textbook

 The content may not be relevant- right

 level
• There may be too much focus on specific
aspects of language and not enough focus
on others.
• It may not include everything.
• There may not be the right mix of
 activities.
• The sequence is lockstep.
• The material may go out of date.
• The timetable is unrealistic.
 2. A course book is not intended to be
the ‘bible’

 Too often teachers follow it "religiously“ and do

nothing else, nor do they include outside materials
in their teaching.
1. Read the teacher's notes at the beginning. You
will read how the course book is intended as a
guide for teaching with supplementary materials
to be added to expand, deepen or reinforce
presented materials and themes.
2. Use the course book sequence as a guide and
freely supplement exercises and materials with your
own creations or at the very least with materials
adapted from other sources.
 How to Adapt the Text

 Leave out a section or sections

a.Leave out the first or second section(s) of
the book when they already know the
concepts(it is being recycled)
b.Leave out a section with a grammar point
that is introduced later on as there is a unit
that does contrasting of two tenses (e.g.
Present Perfect/ Simple Past)
 Adding, adapting and replacing

TO USE THE COURSEBOOKS MORE CREATIVELY

ADDING ADAPTING REPLACING

Add some Adjust the To use variety

activities extra of activities,
that are not activities to be to the lesson
in the suitable for class .
course book. your lesson
and for your
students’
Assumptions
BUT
'Creativity is about liberating human energy.' Howard
Gardner
Creativity is about generating ideas or producing
things and transforming them into something of
value. It often involves being inventive, ingenious,
innovative and entrepreneurial.
Creativity is not just about special people doing
special things. We all have the potential to be
creative and creativity is a skill that needs to be
developed.
Most individuals believe they are not very
creative. Creativity, however, is an increasingly
valuable commodity in the modern world.
Remember that ….
 Findings for the need to adapt their materials

 Unsuitable contents for the learners' level of proficiency

 Materials not fitting into the time available for the course
 Not enough grammar coverage
 Not enough practice of grammar points of particular difficulty for
learners
 Grammar presented unsystematically
 Reading passages contain too much unknown vocabulary
 Comprehension questions are too easy and can be lifted from the
text with no real understanding
 Subject matter inappropriate for age, culture or intellectual level
 Photographs and other illustrative materials insufficient or
inappropriate
 Dialogues too formal not representative of everyday speech
 Too much or too little in the variety of activities