The sections in this unit are: ) 14.1 How necessary Is a coursebook? Alternatives to the coursebook, advantages and disadvantages. 14.2. Coursebook evaluation and selection. Discussion of criteria for evaluating and choosing a coursebook for your class. 14.3 Adapting course materials. Some ideas on how to add to, shorten or change course materials to make them more appropriate for @ particular class. 14.4 Supplementary materials (4): paper. A summary of various types of paper materials available to supplement the main coursebook. 14.5. Supplementary materials (2): digital. Some computer-based software and hardware that can be used to facilitate teaching and learning. How necessary is a coursebook? The word coursebook here refers to the material which is used as the basis for a course, whether an actual book or an online course. Before reading this unit: what would your own answer be to the question in the heading of this section? In some places it is taken for granted that coursebooks are used as the basis for courses. In others they may not be used at all, and the teacher bases his or her teaching on a syllabus, or his or her own programme, using personally selected teaching materials when necessary. A third situation is a compromise, where a coursebook is used selectively, not necessarily in sequence, and is extensively supplemented by other materials. In most situations today, the coursebook is in fact a conventional paper book but online or digital course materials are on the increase. The following list of advantages and disadvantages apply to either paper or digital coursebooks. Read through the arguments below, ticking those you agree with, adding a cross to ones you don’t. Write any criticisms or comments in the margin. Add any other arguments that you think of, based on your own experience as a student or teacher. ‘A Course in English Language Teaching 19714 Materials Advantages of a coursebook + Framework. A coursebook provides a clear framework. Teachers and students know where they are going and what is coming next, so there is a sense of structure and progress. * Syllabus. In many places the coursebook is used as a syllabus. If it is followed systematically, a planned selection of language will be covered. + Ready-made texts and tasks. The coursebook provides texts and learning tasks which are likely to be of an appropriate level for most of the class. This saves time for the teacher who would otherwise have to prepare his or her own. * Guidance. For teachers who are inexperienced or unsure of their knowledge of the language or teaching skills, the coursebook can provide useful guidance and support. * Autonomy. The student can use the coursebook to learn new material, and review and monitor his or her own progress autonomously. A student without a coursebook is more teacher-dependent. Disadvantages of a coursebook * Inadequacy. Every individual class has their own learning needs. No single coursebook can possibly meet these satisfactorily. © Irrelevance, lack of interest. The topics in the coursebook may not be relevant or interesting for your class. And they may ‘date’ rapidly, whereas materials you choose yourself can be more up to date. * Cultural inappropriateness. The content of a coursebook may be culturally inappropriate, which not only may make it irrelevant or uninteresting, but can also cause discomfort or even offence. * Limited range of level. Coursebooks target a particular student population and rarely cater for the variety of levels of ability or proficiency that exist in most classes. * Possible negative effect on teaching. Teachers may follow the coursebook uncritically and are discouraged from using their own initiative: they may find themselves functioning merely as mediators of its content instead of as teachers in their own right. Were any of the arguments new to you? If they were, and you agree with them, would you now change your answer to the question at the beginning of this unit? Or is your previous opinion unchanged? The final decision as to whether or not to use a coursebook has to depend on your own teaching style, the resources available and the accepted policy in your school. 198 A Course in English Language Teaching14 Materials In my own situation - teaching English in a state school in a non-English-speaking country — I preferred to use a coursebook. I found that a set framework helped me to regulate and time my programme. Perhaps surprisingly, it also provided a firm basis for my own supplementary teaching ideas. I could do my own thing occasionally, knowing that I had a structured programme to return to. It is my experience that students also prefer to have one. The classes which 1 have tried to teach using a selection of materials from different sources have complained of a sense of lack of purpose. And, interestingly, that they feel that their studies — and, by implication, they ~ are not taken seriously. It seems that having a coursebook may carry a certain prestige. Coursebook evaluation and selection Whether or not you choose to base your course on a coursebook, it is worth thinking about how you recognize a good one, and why you might reject or criticize it: in other words, what are your main criteria for evaluation. These criteria may be general (suitable for any language-teaching materials) or specific (looking at the appropriateness of a set of materials for a certain course or group of learners). An example of a general criterion might be: ‘clear layout and font’, or ‘provides regular review or test sections’. A specific criterion for a class of younger learners might be: ‘attractive and colourful illustrations’, or for a class of medical students: ‘vocabulary and texts relevant to medicine’. the general criteria suggested below are my own, but they rely on ideas suggested in a number of books and articles on the subject (see some useful sources in Further reading at the end of this unit). | Read the list of criteria for evaluating language-learning coursebooks below. in the lefthand column, use the following symbols to note how important you think each criterion is: | VV for ‘essential’ (without this | wouldn’t use the coursebook) ¥ for ‘quite important’ j | 2 for not sure’ | X for ‘not important’ XX for ‘totally unimportant’ (it wouldn't make any difference to me if it was there or not) Then, optionally, add further criteria you fee! are significant in the spaces left at the end, and mark in their importance. Ignore the Applied column for the moment. If you are working in 2 group, compare your ideas with those of colleagues. Then read on. 7A Course In English Language Teaching, 19914 Materials Checklist for coursebook evaluation bailed Cow Bua 1, The objectives are clearly explained in the introduction, and implemented in the material. | 2. The approach is educationally and culturally acceptable |___ to the target students. 3. The layout is clear (both the book as a whole and single pages) and the print is easy to read. If digital, then it is easy to ‘navigate’ from page to page. 4, The material is attractive. 5. The texts and tasks are interesting 6. The texts and tasks are varied, appropriate for different learner levels, learning styles, interests, etc. 7. Instructions are clear. 8. There is an explicit syllabus, which is covered systematically. 9. Content is clearly organized and graded 10. There are regular review and test sections. 411, There are pronunciation explanations and practice. | 12. There are vocabulary explanations and practice. 13. There are grammar explanations and practice. 14. There are tasks that activate the students in listening, speaking, reading and writing. 15. The material encourages leamers to develop their own learning strategies and to become independent in their learning. 16. There is adequate guidance for the teacher (teacher's guide, or teacher's notes). 17. There are audio recordings available. | | 18. There are visual materials available: posters, video, | flash cards, et 19. There is @ coursebook website, with guidance and supplementary materials available. 20. The material is easily available and not too expensive. | 21. 22, 200 A Course in English Language Teaching14 Materials 5. 10. Objectives. This is important, but check that the objectives expressed in the introduction to the coursebook are in fact implemented. Often they are not! Approach. How important this is depends on your approach and the student population. Some communities are more sensitive than others. Layout. This is vitally important. The material has to be clear and ‘navigable’ both you and your students need to be able to find your way around it easily and smoothly. You need to be able to read the texts easily (so it is not a good idea to have artistic fonts, or pictures behind text which make reading difficult). You also need to be able to move around it easily if it is a digital course composed of a lot of webpages and links. Appearance. This is particularly important for younger classes, but may be less so for older ones. Children and adolescents are used to colourful and eye- catching books, television and websites and may be demotivated by black and white or uninteresting design. Interest. | would rank this as quite important. On the one hand, skilful and imaginative teaching can make even the most boring texts and tasks interesting (and bad teaching can ‘kill’ the most interesting ones!). On the other hand, it helps a lot if the book provides interesting material that you can use, adapting as necessary for your classes. Variation. This quality is one that is often missing in coursebooks. There should be some texts which are easier or more difficult. Tasks should be designed to allow for performance at different levels. Texts and tasks should vary also in the topic, the kind of language style, the type of participation or learning strategies they require, etc. The lack of variation is not a reason to reject the book, but if it exists it is a positive feature. So I would rank it as quite important (see Unit 19: Learner differences (2): teaching heterogeneous (mixed) classes). Instructions. Essential. For a monolingual class of beginners, this may mean providing instructions and explanations in the L1. Syllabus. Essential. Check what kind of a syllabus the coursebook has. This should be clear from the table of contents at the beginning (see Unit 13: The syllabus). Does it provide coverage of all the items you think are essential? ‘And are these items in fact covered in the material itself? You may need to check that the coursebook follows syllabuses which are relevant to your teaching situation, such as the CEFR, a national syllabus, or the syllabus of an exam such as ESOL. . Organization. Systematic progress in difficulty is very important for courses in primary and secondary schools. However, it may not be as important for courses in academic English or other more advanced programmes. Review and test. The inclusion of these features may or may not be important to you. Review exercises and tests are sometimes provided on the course website, rather than in the main materials themselves. Often, however, you will prefer to create your own. What you actually teach is never exactly ‘ACCourso in English Language Teaching 20114 Materials 1. 12. 13. 14, 15, 16. 18. 19. what the coursebook provides: you may skip some bits and add others, in which case the coursebook reviews and tests might not be suitable. So this component is probably less essential than some of the others. Pronunciation. How much emphasis is put on pronunciation teaching depends on the approach in your teaching situation, so the evaluation here would also vary. Pronunciation problems can often be dealt with as they come up, so you do not necessarily need a systematic programme in the coursebook. Vocabulary. This is an essential component. The materials should provide plenty of vocabulary expansion and review activities. Grammar. Like pronunciation, how much emphasis is put on grammar depends on the local teaching situation. In many contexts substantial grammar coverage is required, but in others it is not. So the evaluation is likely to range from ‘essential’ to ‘not sure’. Listening, speaking, reading and writing. Tasks activating the four skills are the main basis for communicative practice. And they are essential. The coursebook should provide texts and tasks that promote fluency and accuracy in the four skills in communicative situations, as well as activities that provide opportunities for students to do ‘mixed-skills’ activities. Learner independence. Whether the materials encourage learner independence and autonomy is quite important, but it is a very difficult aspect to evaluate. Some things to look for are computer-based tasks which enable self-checking, and research tasks that students do on their own, such as ‘webquests’. Teacher's guides. Teacher's guides are quite important, particularly — but not only — for novice teachers. The teacher's materials provide not only answers to exercises, saving time and effort, but also useful tips on ways of dealing with texts and tasks. Audio recordings. This is an essential component for listening comprehension. Without them, you would have to look for material on the Internet or on CDs. Itis very difficult to find suitable material for your class from either source, so you really need ready-made ones that accompany the course. If the recordings are on video, so much the better. Visual materials. Visual materials such as posters and flash cards, whether on paper or displayed digitally, are essential for classes of younger learners. They provide an enjoyable break from the coursebook, focus attention and are likely to improve learning. However, they may be unnecessary for older and more academic classes. Website. The course website is a fairly standard component these days. Often the audio recordings and teacher's guide can be found there, as well as supplementary exercises, tests and texts, and links to other useful websites, It is not absolutely necessary, but it may be quite an important added resource. 202 A Course In English Language Teaching14 Materials Availability. This is perhaps obvious, but essential. The most desirable coursebook in the world is no good if it is too expensive for your institution or students to afford, or if it is not easily available in your country. Now take a coursebook and examine it, applying the criteria you have in your list. Write your ratings in the Applied column of the table. You could use a similar code to the one used above in the first task in this section (Vv or ¥ indicates a high or very high score, X or XX a low or very low score, and ? indicates that you are not sure, or that the criterion applies partially) Again, you can compare notes with colleagues who have looked at the same materials, and see how far you can agree on the different items. EZEd Adapting course materials This section applies both to standard coursebooks, as discussed in Sections 14.1 and 14.2 above, and to materials such as published grammar exercises, reading comprehension texts, worksheets ~ all of which may, of course, be presented either on paper or on a computer. All teaching materials should be related to critically by the teacher. We need to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses in order to make the most of the former and compensate for or neutralize the latter. If there are gaps in the material (for example, if the coursebook does not provide enough reading texts or grammar practice), the problem can be solved by a quick ‘surf’ through the Internet, or by adding supplementary grammar or reading books. But problems with specific components within teaching units can only be solved by the teacher in the classroom. You may find it necessary to make substantial changes, deletions and additions. Here is a sample of problems that teachers in particular situations might encounter, where the solutions might involve such changes to the text or task, Note that no criticism is intended of the extracts in themselves: they are all interesting and well written. It’s just that they may not, for various reasons, address the needs of a particular group of students. Look at the teachers’ criticisms, and think about how you might go about solving the problems. Then read on to the What we can do section below, and annotate with any further ideas you had yourself that | had not thought of. \ Paolo (teaching in a primary school in Italy): It’s important to do lots of grammar practice with my students, but exercises like this one are rather boring, the students get fed up doing them. And they're too short: don’t give enough opportunities for practice. ‘A Course in English Language Teaching 203,14 Matertals Complete the sentences: « Venice is .. This school is, This was . (beautiful) than London. (big) than that one. + (bad) day of my life! 4, Which is . (heavy): a pound or a kilo? 5. Which supermarket has the ..... (cheap) vegetables? 6. She was (popular) singer in the festival. 7, For me, mathematics is ......osesesseessseeees (difficult) than English, Suad (teaching in a girls’ school in Egypt): The reading passage is culturally inappropriate for my adolescent female students. In our culture it is not acceptable for young people to have girlfriends and boyfriends or ‘go out’. So Ihave a problem with the following reading passage, though the rest of the book is excellent. C > Where did New Yorkers ever get the reputation for being unfriendly? It’s so completely the opposite that it is unbelievable that anyone could subscribe to the idea for more than five minutes. The only reason the idea survives is that New Yorkers themselves love to affirm it and that many people who visit the city stay in a few midtown blocks of the business area and fear to walk the neighborhoods, west and east. The truth is that New Yorkers are almost embarrassingly friendly and helpful, so much so that it is bewildering to the uninitiated, who think they are up to something. Nearly all New Yorkers talk to one another all the time, and they love to give advice. A woman at a bus stop dropped some books and muttered that everything was terrible today. Another asked her what was wrong (while everyone else listened carefully), and she said her boyfriend had broken up with her, Nearly every person had consolation to offer, and then a very elegantly dressed lady at the back of the group said, ‘You should meet my brother Jimmy; he’s a great guy and he’s not attached. Look, here’s his phone number; Ill tell him to expect your call. You can have coffee - what could it hurt?’ 204 A Course in English Language Teaching14 Materials If you are a stranger, all the stops are pulled out. Recently, on a full subway car a man asked where to get off for Wall Street. Everyone jumped to instruct, him, but that was just the beginning. The passengers on the subway wanted to know why he wanted to go to Wall Street, explained that Saturday was no good since the Stock Exchange wasn't open, demanded to know what he'd already seen in New York, and arrived finally at an agreement about where he should go that day — and three of them made sure he got off at the right stop for it. Why is such a huge city so sociable? My own theory is that it’s an island mentality. They want to know everything about everybody on their little island, or at least in their own neighborhood, and everyone who sets foot on it. (Slightly abridged from http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_wassman, effective_3/55/14087/3606342.cw/content/index.html) Emilia (teaching in a private school in Brazil): This reading passage is interesting, and my students relate well to the topic, but it’s a bit too short and easy for my class of 12-year-old students. They need more challenge. Who was Robin Hood? Nobody knows. In the film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Robin was rich, but this probably wasn’t true. We know that he was a popular hero in the 13th century. It's possible the real man was born before then. Who were the Merry Men? Little John and Will Scarlet were famous Merry Men. Robin Hood was the leader of this group of men (and women) Why were Robin Hood and his Merry Men famous? ‘A Course in English Language Teaching 20514 Materials ‘They were famous for robbing rich people. But Robin Hood and his Merry Men weren't robbers - the money was for poor people. (Adapted from Active Grammar 1, F. Davis and W. Rimmer, Cambridge University Press.) ‘Takumi (teaching in a boys’ school in Japan): This reading passage is too long and difficult for my class: teaching it would mean translating a lot of the words, and they would find it hard and perhaps boring. A young emperor penguin took a wrong turn from the Antarctic and ended up stranded on a New Zealand beach - the first time in 44 years the aquatic bird has been sighted in the south Pacific country, Local resident Christine Wilton was taking her miniature schnauzer dog Millie for a walk on Peka Peka beach on the North Island's western coast when she discovered the bird. ‘It was out of this world to see it ... like someone just dropped it from the sky’ Wilton said. Conservation experts say the penguin is about 10 months old and stands about 80cm (32 inches) high. Emperor penguins are the tallest and largest species of penguin and can grow up to 122cm high and weigh more than 34kg (75ibs). 206 A Course in English Language Teaching14 Materials Colin Miskelly, a curator at Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand, said the bird was likely to have been born during the last Antarctic winter. He said emperor penguins can spend months at a time in the ocean, but did not know what might have caused this particular one to become disoriented. Miskelly said the penguin appeared healthy and well fed, with plenty of body fat, and probably came ashore for a rest. However, Miskelly said the penguin would need to find its way back south soon if it were to survive. Despite the onset of the New Zealand winter, the bird was probably hot and thirsty, he said Peter Simpson, a programme manager for New Zealand's department of conservation, said officials are asking people to stand back about 10m from the creature and to avoid letting dogs near it. The last confirmed sighting of a wild emperor in New Zealand was in 1967 at the southern Oreti beach, he said. (Slightly abridged version of an article that appeared in The Guardian, on 24 June 2041. www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/21/emperor-penguins detournewzealand) What we can do Paolo: boring and too-short grammar exercises. Here are some ideas for adaptation to add interest and length. Having led the students through the exercise once conventionally, tell them to: 1. close their books and try to recall all seven of the completed sentences. They can work in pairs. Then, in full class, check answers. 2. ignore the sentence endings, and invent their own: so sentence 5 might be ‘Which supermarket has the freshest fruit’? 3. ignore the adjective in brackets, and suggest any other comparative or superlative adjectives that make sense with the rest of the sentence. For example, the first sentence could be ‘Venice is warmer than London’ or ‘Venice is smaller than London’. 4, change selected statements (it doesn't work for questions) in whatever way they like in order to make them true for them. So for sentence 7, for example, they might say ‘For me, mathematics is more difficult than Italian’, 5. use only the comparative or superlative adjective in each case, ignoring all the rest of the sentence given, and make true sentences of their own. Note that in ideas 2, 3, 4 and 5, the students do not have to go through every item in the exercise, and are certainly not confined to the order in which they appear in the original. On the other hand, they may produce a number of different answers to any single item. Suad: cultural inappropriateness. There are various options here, and which you choose depends on various factors: the opinions and personalities of the students, their parents’ attitudes, your own cultural background and beliefs, and school policy. ‘A Course in English Language Teaching 20714 Materials 1. You can simply skip this reading passage, which may mean omitting an entire unit. Or you could replace it with one you find yourself. 2. Ifyou have a digital copy of the text, you could either delete the inappropriate paragraph, or change the text so that the woman’s problem is something more acceptable to your students’ culture. 3. You might use the text as it is, and simply acknowledge that this relates toa foreign culture and would not be acceptable at home. 4, You might go further: take the opportunity to draw students’ attention to the differences in cultural norms between the USA and the home culture and discuss the issue of cultural differences in general. Emilia: short, easy reading passage. This is indeed quite an easy text, though you might need to teach your students words like leader, merry. Some things you might do to make it more challenging are: 1. Give students five minutes to work on their own, inserting as many adjectives and adverbs as they can in the passage. Then share the results. 2. Tell students to take pairs of simple sentences from the text, and combine them into one sentence. They can change the wording as necessary. For example ‘In the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Robin was rich, but this probably wasn’t true.’ Might be changed to ‘Although in the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Robin was rich, this probably wasn’t true.’ 3. Send students to the Internet to find out as much as they can about Robin Hood, write notes, and share the information they have found in the following lesson, either orally or in writing. 4, a) If you have an interactive whiteboard (IWB), show the text on the board and invite students to add whole phrases or sentences of at least three words, wherever they like and make sense. If they have done the internet research, as suggested at 3. above, then the insertions should relate to what they have found out. ) If you don’t have an IWB, then ask students to say what their additions would be, and where they would put them. Write up on the board only the additions. Students copy them down, and then for homework try to remember or work out where to insert them and write out the entire text. 5. Select specific words from the text (for example, hero, real, rich, popular, merry, etc.), and tell students for homework to find out from dictionaries, thesauri or by searching online as many other words of similar meaning as they can for each. Takumi: long, difficult passage. The problem with difficulty is essentially the level of vocabulary. The aspect of length is dealt with later, 1. Vocabulary, There are two useful strategies here: a) Pre-teach the key words necessary for understanding the main topic of the passage. These might be emperor penguin, sight (v.), stranded. Don’t try to pre- teach all previously unknown vocabulary before reading. That would just overwhelm and discourage the students. They need to discover the rest of the new items gradually, preferably in context. The main key words can also provide the basis for a pre-reading discussion of the topic. 208 A Course in English Language Teaching14 Matorials b) Before presenting the passage, delete the difficult bits wherever you can without altering the basic message, and present the text the first time without them. For example: ‘A young emperor penguin took a wrong turn from the Antarctic and ended up stranded on a New Zealand beach — the first time in 44 years the aquatic bird has been sighted in the south Pacific country. Local resident Christine Wilton was taking her dog Millie for a walk on- Peka-Peke-beach-on-the North Istand’s-western-coast when she discovered the bird. “It was out-of this workd-to-see it... like someone just dropped it from the sky,” Wilton said. Conservation experts say the penguin is about 10 months old and stands about 80cm (32 inches) high. Tell students to cross out these items lightly, in pencil on their copy (or use ‘delete’ or ‘strikethrough’ if they have a digital version). Or, if you are able to retype the passage, it can be presented to the students as: ‘A young emperor penguin took a wrong turn from the Antarctic and ended up on a New Zealand beach - the first time in 44 years the bird has been sighted in the south Pacific country. Christine Wilton was taking her dog Millie for a walk when she discovered the bird. “It was like someone just dropped it from the sky,” Wilton said. Experts say the penguin is about 10 months old and stands about 80cm (32 inches) high. 2. Length. The answer here is to do the text bit by bit, so that the students are not faced with the entire text at one session. a) In the first lesson, work only on the first few sentences, simplified as suggested above, teaching new vocabulary as necessary. b) Challenge students to predict what more information will be provided later in this report; then continue reading, working on each paragraph on its own before progressing to the next. ©) When you have finished working through the entire passage, read it aloud to the students again, to familiarize further. d) Only after the students know the basic content and sequence of argument of the simplified passage, let them read the original with the deleted items reinstated, and work on these as necessary. Summary The coursebook provides you with useful texts and tasks which you can use as the basis for your teaching programme. But that is essentially what it is: a good basis. ‘The coursebook authors do not know your class: you do. You are the best person to decide how much of the material to use, and how. Be selective and critical, using your own professional judgement to decide where it needs to be changed and where it does not. As the examples above show, coursebook materials can be adapted (sometimes quite drastically) in order to create appropriate, learning-rich and interesting activities for your class. ‘A Course in English Language Teaching 20914 Materials HEEZZ) Supplementary materials (1): paper Most language-teaching coursebooks probably need some supplementing in order to adapt them to the needs of a particular class or to offer extra texts, exercises or visual materials. Below is a list of paper supplementary materials that you should try to have access to, either in your staff room or at home. Reference books The main type of reference book is, of course, the dictionary. It is useful to have a monolingual English dictionary available in the staff room (the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, for example), as well as a good learner's dictionary (like the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary). If you are teaching students who all (or mostly) share a single L1, then you will need also a good bilingual dictionary. Other useful reference books are the thesaurus (Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases) and a good teacher's grammar (for example, Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage). Your students should also have paper or electronic dictionaries with them ~ usually bilingual unless they are always carrying mobile electronic hardware with easily accessed dictionary sites. Textbooks You will find it useful to have a variety of English-teaching textbooks on your shelves. These would include various coursebooks, but also books focusing on particular aspects of language such as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, style and so on. You might want to use extracts to supplement your own coursebook where you feel something is missing or inadequately covered. Teacher handbooks There is an enormous range of handbooks available to the English teacher, covering almost any aspect of teaching you can think of. Some of them are too theoretical, or focus on a specific student population which may not have much in common with yours, or suggest activities that are not practicable in your classes. Others are excellent and can enrich your teaching as well as make it more enjoyable. Take every opportunity to browse through the teacher handbooks at teachers’ conferences and bookshops; and ask experienced colleagues which handbooks they have found useful. Books for extensive reading The importance of extensive reading has already been discussed in Unit 10: ‘Teaching reading, pp. 145-6. A library of suitable books is therefore a ‘must’ for any school or insitution where English is taught. This should include plenty of simplified readers at different levels as well as unsimplified books. Getting a group of students to read such books regularly is easier said than done, as many experienced teachers will testify. It requires ongoing monitoring of book borrowing and returning, and constant investment in new books. However, it is certainly worthwhile: the expense, compared to computer hardware, for example, is relatively small, and the benefits for language learning are substantial. 240 A Course in English Language Teaching14 Materials Worksheets, test papers, work cards ‘Teachers very often prepare worksheets for their students with extra reading or language practice as well as tests. There is also an enormous number of worksheets and tests available on the Internet, although finding what you want can take hours ~ and even then you might not find exactly what you need. Teacher-made worksheets or test papers are copied onto A4 paper and have room to write in answers. As compared to work cards (described below), they have the advantages that they can be written on, are less time-consuming to make, and are in fact often provided in workbooks that come with course materials. Having created and used the worksheets or tests, there are two important things you need to do with them later. One is to share them with colleagues, some of whom may be using similar materials with similar students and may find the extra material useful. The second is to file them: see the last paragraph of this section. Work cards are small pieces of coloured card (perhaps about one-quarter the size of an A4 sheet of paper), which can be laminated. Each card displays one short task, designed to be done in five minutes or less. Students do one, and then exchange it for another, as described below. If you are focusing on reading, then each card would show the same type of reading task, but obviously using different actual content each time. If you are focusing on grammar, each might show one item of a ten-item exercise, with instructions. The same can be done for writing, vocabulary and various other topics. Here is an example of a simple reading card for an elementary class of young learners: Draw in your notebooks This is a big bus. It is red. There are people in the bus. The other cards would consist of similar easy descriptions for students to draw. Usually there are ten or so different cards in a set, but each would need to be copied three or four times, depending on the size of your class. For a class of 20, you would need about 30 cards to make sure you have a constant ‘reserve’, You begin by giving each student a card. Leave the ‘reserve’ in a central location in the classroom. As they finish, students come to exchange their card for a new one. The main advantage of the use of work cards is that all students are engaging with the task all the time, each working at his or her own speed. | have also found them very motivating. This is is partly because the items are done quickly so there is a sense of achievement: the student does not have to wait to the end of the whole exercise to feel he or she has finished something. And it is partly because of the actual movement - getting up to exchange cards and returning with a new card — which provides a change from the generally static classroom. ‘ACCourse in English Language Teaching 24114 Materials Pictures: posters, flash cards Materials with pictures are invaluable, particularly for younger learners, and teachers of children find that they constantly use them. The time is gone when teachers used to spend hours leafing through glossy magazines and colour supplements of newspapers to find suitable pictures: today you can find and download all the pictures you need at the click of a mouse. These can then be glued onto card, or laminated if you think you will use them repeatedly, and filed (see below). It is, of course, possible to display visual material on IWBs, but Paper materials have the advantage that they can be easily handled, moved and exchanged rather than stuck at the front of the class. All supplementary materials based on separate sheets of paper or card need to be carefully filed. It is very frustrating to invest a lot of time creating them and then find that you cannot lay your hands on them when you want to use them again! Label and classify files clearly, either in a folder on a computer or in a box file. It is often a good idea to preserve paper versions even of material you have on your computer in digital form, as a useful ready-to-copy back-up. HREZED Supplementary materials (2): digital ‘A large amount of teaching and learning these days is done with the help of technology. The term CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) is, however, used less and less, as people become aware that the use of technology is not a supplement (as implied in the word ‘assisted’), but a staple component in the materials and facilities used for learning and teaching worldwide. Computers, in their various forms, with a wide range of software and access to the Internet, are, in many teaching contexts, taken for granted, in much the same way as the black- or whiteboard is. Below is a list of the digital tools that can be useful in teaching. For more information on how to use them, see Unit 16: Classroom interaction, pp. 238-41 The interactive whiteboard (IWBs) and data projectors You can use both data projectors and IWBs to display texts, pictures, pages from the textbook, presentations and video. IWBs can be controlled by the touch of a finger or special ‘pen’, which means that a teacher can write and erase in the same way as with a conventional board. But it is useful to take advantage of an IWB's other tools: hide and display text and pictures; play audio and video directly from the textbook page; type in answers; insert your own files. The material can be saved, to be displayed later, filed on the class website or emailed to students later. Internet websites The Internet provides teachers with an immense source of teaching materials and ideas, some examples of which are listed below: * reading texts, either from ‘authentic’ sources (i.e. not originally designed to be used for teaching), or from English-teaching websites * listening texts as YouTube videos, or audio podcasts 242 A Course in English Language Teaching14 Materials + tests, workpages, exercises and so on, from the various English-teaching websites, such as the British Council’s TeachingEnglish, accessible from www. teachingenglish.org.uk * self-access exercises and tests for students to use on their own. See, for example: Learn English: http://learnenglish. britishcouncil.org/en/ Learn English Kids: http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/ English Grammar Exercises: www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises_list/alle. grammar.htm Guide to Grammar and Writing: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/ grammar/index.htm ESLflow: www.eslflow.com/index.html Interactive digital tools Email, obviously, can be used for many purposes in communication between teachers and students: submitting and correcting assignments, notifying of absences or changes in schedule and so on. Mobile phones are often seen as a nuisance in the classroom, but in fact they can be used to help learning: for example, students can use them to practise informal communicative writing, or to list new vocabulary which they can then review at odd moments. Wikis and blogs Wikis are a tool through which anyone can edit or comment on uploaded text: so they are useful for interactive editing and discussion of student-generated texts. They are increasingly used as a basis for class websites. Blogs are used as a way for students to comment on texts or respond to tasks: they often develop into full discussions, with ‘comments’ going back and forth, Digital recording Digital equipment, including most mobile phones, can be used to create both video and audio recordings. Students can create their own video clips or sound recordings; the teacher can record students’ performance to play back later. Or live sound or video can be broadcast via the Internet (‘streaming’). Production Desktop publishing enables classes or individual students to create and design pages or whole booklets for publishing, either within the school or beyond. This is particularly useful for the presentation of research-based or creative projects done by students. e-books These may be used for the provision of extensive reading material; however, at the time of writing they are not systematically or widely used in English courses for this purpose. They may, however, answer the needs of more advanced students who can download novels for their own individual reading. Digital tools are not a substitute for the face-to-face lesson or for direct interaction between teacher and student; rather, where available and well-used, they are ‘A Cours in English Language Teaching 21314 Materials 244 A Course in English Language Teaching a means of enriching it and making it more efficient. The combination of conventional and digital teaching/learning, known as blended learning, often using programs known as LMSs (Learning Management Systems), will be discussed further in Unit 16: Classroom interaction, p. 240. | | Answer as many as you can of the following questions, and then check answers by referring back to the relevant passages in this unit. IF you are working in a group, note down your answers first alone, and then share with the other members of the group. Finally, check the answers together. How necessary is a coursebook? 1. Can you give at least three arguments in favour of using a coursebook in your teaching? 2. Can you suggest at least three disadvantages of using a coursebook in your teaching? Coursebook evaluation and selection 3. Why is the layout of a coursebook so important? 4. Why are tests and reviews in a coursebook less important? 5. What other important criteria for textbook selection can you remember (20 are suggested in this section)? Adapting course materials 6. What sorts of things can be done to improve a grammar exercise that is boring and does not provide enough practice? 7. What can be done to add more challenge to a too-easy text? 8, What ht be done to make a difficult text easier for the class to cope with? Supplementary materials (1): paper 9. What types of paper materials should be available to teachers for use in classes? 10. How can you make sure that teacher-made paper materials are available for later re-use? Supplementary materials (2): digital 11. What is an IWB? How can it be used? 12. Can you suggest at least five other types of computer hardware or software that are useful to teachers today? Further reading Cooper, R., Lavery, M. and Rinvolucri, M. (1991) Video, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Useful classroom activities for language learning using video) Cunningworth, A. (1995) Choosing Your Coursebook, Oxford: Macmillan Heinemann, (Useful guidelines and checklists to help select coursebooks)14 Materials Dudeney, G. and Hockly, N. (2007) How to Teach English with Technology, London: Pearson Education. (A practical guide to the use of computers and web2 tools in the classroom, with plenty of actual activities clearly explained) Erben, T. and Sarieva, 1. (2007) CALLing All Foreign Language Teachers: Computer- Assisted Language Learning in the Classroom, Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education. (A comprehensive guide to the use of technology in language teaching: some chapters available online: http://sites.google.com/site/terben9397/ callingallforeignlanguageteachers) Tomlinson, B. (ed.) (1998) Materials Development for Language Teaching, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (A collection of articles about the design and composition of teaching materials, including materials targeting specific skills, purposes and populations) Wright, A. and Haleem, S. (1991) Visuals for the Language Classroom, London: Longman. (A thorough discussion of the topic, exploring classroom procedures associated with the various types of materials) ‘A Course in English Language Teaching 245