Popular methodology

4.9 Coursebooks and other materials

For many teachers, decisions about what to teach are heavily influenced by the coursebook
they are using. Not only do coursebooks offer a syllabus that teachers are expected to follow,
but, more importantly, they have strong suggestions about how this syllabus should be
taught. When the book has been chosen by the institution they work for, teachers often have
little alternative but to follow its syllabuses and procedures, though as we shall see in 4.9.2
and 4.9.3 this does not necessarily mean that they have to change the way they teach.

4.9.1 For and against coursebook use

Many institutions use the syllabuses in coursebooks (sequences of grammar, vocabulary and
skills, etc.) as their organising principle, and they base courses and tests around progress
through these materials. For many, this is a huge relief, given the time pressures they are
under and the worry about the kinds of decisions that they might otherwise have to make.
For others, however, coursebooks represent a block to creativity – because they feel that
the best lessons should be centred around the ‘students in the room’ (see 4.3.1) rather than
being so heavily influenced by mass-produced material brought into the classroom. Such
people try to use coursebooks as little as possible – if at all. Somewhere in between these
extremes, many teachers use coursebooks from time to time, but supplement them with their
own ideas and other material that they find.
The ‘for and against’ discussions about coursebook use have been going on for years and
years (see for example Hutchinson and Torres 1994, Harmer 2001, Thornbury and Meddings
2001). More recently, Lindsay Clandfield has worried about the overuse of celebrities in
coursebook material (Clandfield 2009), Adrian Gilmore has suggested that coursebook
dialogues frequently fail to reflect authentic interactions (Gilmore 2004) and Mark Koprowski
worried that some coursebooks seem to select lexical chunks (idioms, etc.) that may be of
‘limited pedagogical value’ (Koprowski 2005: 322). There is even the possibility that the
type of coursebook currently on offer has had its day and that, instead, publishers should
develop a ‘tagged database of content chunks, each of which presents or practises a specific
element of the language’ because ‘you need to be able to flex the syllabus in response to the
students’ progress. That can only work if the course has flexibility built into its structure. And
that means granular chunks of content which the adaptive software can get its teeth into’
(Harrison 2014: 28), and see 4.10.
Arguments in favour of coursebook use include the following:
• They are carefully prepared and offer a coherent syllabus and satisfactory
language control.
• They are often attractively presented.
• They provide lively and interesting material, topics and texts.
• They are very useful for the students to look at again to remind themselves of what they
have been studying.
• Pedagogic artifice (e.g. some of the less realistic examples that preoccupy some
commentators) is ‘perfectly justified … as a stage in the process of becoming
a competent user of another language’, although ‘it can not end there’
(Gilmore 2004: 371).
• Good Teacher’s Books which accompany many coursebooks suggest a variety of
procedures to help teachers use the materials effectively and appropriately.

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• Modern coursebooks can come with a variety of extras, including DVDs and (especially)
companion websites which offer more texts and videos, practice exercises and
test material. Furthermore, they can keep track of the students’ participation and
homework – and process grades, etc. – all of which takes some of the load from the
teacher’s shoulders.
Arguments against the (over)use of coursebooks include:
• They impose learning styles which may not suit a particular group of students.
• They often rely on PPP (presentation, practice and production – see 4.7) as the default
teaching procedure, and this may not be in the best interests of the students.
• They stifle some teachers’ creativity because completing coursebook material becomes
more important than real classroom communication.
• They are often bland (to avoid any possible offence or cultural inappropriacy) and
therefore uninteresting.
• They are not about the students’ current interests.
• They have an unrelenting format. Units are always laid out the same way. This can be
very unmotivating.
• They are boring.
• In a world where the students can find anything they need or want on the internet
using their own devices (see 11.1), a static pre-constructed body of material is
simply out of date.
Perhaps, in the light of all this, we might agree with Peter Levrai that ‘at most, coursebooks
are a jumping-off point for teachers and learners and, as such, their prime function should
be enabling the learning experience to blossom outside the scope of the materials’ (Levrai
2013: 7). Another possibility is that coursebooks will soon disappear as more digital solutions
replace them (Harrison 2014). For the moment, however, they are still widely used, so it is
important to know how to choose and use them.

4.9.2 How to use coursebooks

It is perfectly possible for a teacher to use a coursebook in the way that its writers have
suggested – and in the sequence they have planned. The contents of the book will have been
the result of careful thought and, hopefully, of trialling, reporting and piloting (where the
material is tried out in different classrooms).
Most teachers, however, bring their own personalities, choices and abilities to bear
on the material they are using. In the case of the coursebook, there are a number of
ways of doing this:
Omit things that don’t fit If we find things in the book which are not appropriate for
our students, or things which we don’t think are necessary, we can simply leave them out.
Teachers sometimes do this when they are under pressure to finish material in a certain
period of time (as is often the case). They make a decision that some things are more
important than others – and the less important sections can, therefore, be jettisoned. They
may decide to omit some material because it is not at the right level or because they think it
will not interest or inform their students.
There is nothing wrong with this, of course, except that if the students have bought a
coursebook, and if the teacher continually leaves parts of it out, then sooner or later they (or,
perhaps, their parents) are going to start wondering why they bothered to buy the book in
the first place.

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It is especially important to make sure that material that has been omitted is not the focus
of subsequent testing. We will need to look at the test itself to make sure this is not the case,
and perhaps amend it if there is a problem.
Before deciding to omit a section of a coursebook unit, however, we need to think about
whether we can, instead, adapt it to make it more appropriate for our needs and those of
our students (see below). If we can, this will often be a better alternative than leaving some
out altogether.
Replace things with our own choices We often find sections of a coursebook unit
which we are not very keen on (perhaps because we worry that they are not clear or
they won’t excite our students’ interest and engagement – or perhaps they don’t excite
us either!). However, the content of these sections (the language or skills work, for
example) is important and we don’t want to miss it out. Omitting the section, we realise,
is not an option.
In such cases, we can replace what is in the coursebook with material (and activities)
which we think will work better for us and our students. However, if we do this, we need to
be sure about the original intention of the material we are replacing. If it was introducing or
practising some specific language, then we need to find our own preferred material which
deals with the same language. If it is practising certain listening skills (for example), then we
need to replace it with material that will practise those same skills, even though the actual
details will be different.
We can’t replace too much material for the same reasons that omitting a large percentage
of the coursebook is inappropriate (see above). But where we know of a better text which
is focused on the same topic as the one in the coursebook, or where we have our own
favourite way of introducing some specific language, we would be foolish not to use it.
Adapt and add things Perhaps the best way of using coursebook material is to adapt what
we find there so that we make the contents come alive for our students, whilst at the same
time reassuring them that the material is useful and can be used for revision, etc. Some
suggestions for adapting and adding to material might include (in no particular order):

The students:
• act out dialogues from the coursebook using different characters (a police officer, a
superhero, a ballet dancer, etc.).
• expand dialogues and exchanges to make them longer and more interesting.
• give their opinions about exercises and texts and make suggestions about how they
would change them.
• put sentences from the coursebook into an internet search engine to see if they can
find similar ones online.
• change the gender of the people in a text and see if that alters things.
• are given a copy of the text, omitting the last paragraph. Can they guess what it is?
• aren’t told what the focus of an exercise is. Can they guess?
• search the internet to find three more things about the topic of a text.
• interview people from the text.
• choose which exercise(s) they want to do.
• make sentences which show the opposite of things that are said in a text.

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• are given words from exercises on separate pieces of paper. Can they reassemble
them correctly?
• are given words from texts selected at random (say, for example, every tenth word)
and told to write a sentence using as many of them as possible.
• are given words from a text (spoken or written) selected at random. Can they predict
what the text will be about?
• explain as much about the context of the sentence in an exercise as they can.
• listen to a dialogue or a conversation on an audio track; they have to draw
the characters.
• listen to an audio track; they have to choose music to accompany it.
• write their own exercise sentences and give them to their classmates to try.
• summarise a text in 50 words; then 30; then 10, etc.
• tell a story from the coursebook from someone else’s point of view.
• act out coursebook dialogues, but they are told to be angry or happy or sad, for
example, or to speak very quickly or very slowly or loudly or quietly.

There is almost no limit to the number of ways in which we can play around with the content
of a coursebook, as the few examples above make clear. The point of adapting and adding to
what we find there is to make the material our own so that our students get a strong sense
that we are teaching them and not teaching the coursebook.

4.9.3 Using coursebooks more effectively

If it is the case that most teachers use a coursebook more than once, then it is important to
take advantage of this fact. When we have taught a coursebook unit (or section of a unit), we
will want to reflect on how we felt about it or how we might do it better. We might want to
remember what particular problems we had and make a note of them so that when we come
to use the same material again, we have some warning of what we are in for.
One way of doing this is to make notes in our own copies of the book or the Teacher’s Book.
Perhaps we can put sticky notes on the relevant pages, or we can keep a special notebook, in
much the same way that teachers who write reflective journals record their experiences and
think about how to ‘change’ them (see 6.3.1).
Where more than one teacher is using the same book at the same level, they may want to
share their experiences about what works and what is more problematic. It is good to know
how long things take and perhaps to hear about ways in which colleagues adapt or add to
what is in the book (see above). One way of doing this is to have regular meetings. If this is
not convenient, a ‘suggestions’ box can be kept in the staffroom. Maybe teachers can create
a ‘process’ Teacher’s Book by stapling a notebook into a staffroom copy of a Teacher’s Book
and adding their comments there (Shutler 2011), or perhaps a coursebook blog or wiki can
be set up where teachers discuss the material. The important thing is to look continually for
ways of making the coursebook more effective and enjoyable, and this is especially the case
when a new book (or set of learning materials) is being introduced.

4.9.4 Choosing coursebooks

Many teachers are not involved in the choice of a coursebook but, rather, have to teach
what they are given. But when we do have some say in what material to choose, how should
we go about this?

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Perhaps the best way of choosing a coursebook is to make statements about what we are
looking for, and to use these statements as a checklist by which to measure different books. If
we know what we want, we will be better equipped to recognise it when we see it.
The areas we may wish to consider when deciding what coursebook to choose
include the following:
Price and availability It is important to know whether our students (or their parents)
can afford the price of the materials, and how many extras they will have to pay for.
This is overwhelmingly the biggest consideration. But we also need to be sure that
all the components (workbooks, DVDs, etc.) that the students will need are available
when we need them.
Layout, design and ease of use What does the coursebook look like and how easy is
it to find your way around it? If there is extra material, how easy is that to use? Where
companion websites exist for the course, are they easy to navigate through and, more
importantly, do they work? We should probably subject them to rigorous testing before we
make our decision.
Instructions One of the elements that make a coursebook easy (or difficult) to use are the
instructions (or ‘rubrics’) for the exercises. It is worth having a good look at these to see if
they are clear for both teachers and students.
Methodology If we have strong beliefs about language learning, it will be easy to see if
the materials we are looking at match our beliefs. We need to have an idea of what kind of
teaching and learning the material provokes – the methods, techniques and procedures it
suggests (see above). For this reason, it is worth going through the material in detail and
noting down the different procedures that are on offer to see if we agree with them and
whether there is, for example, enough variety.
Syllabus We need to check the syllabus to see that it agrees with our views of what the
students should be learning, or with any external syllabus that we have to follow. This
includes the language that has been selected, of course, but also the amount of time
given to the different language skills, etc. Is the balance appropriate for our students
and our course?
Topics (and content) We have to see if we can realistically hope that our students will be
engaged with the topics and the content that the coursebook contains. More important
than this, perhaps, is whether the material is culturally appropriate for our learners. Cultural
inappropriacy is easy to spot when materials refer to foods, drinks, actions and lifestyles
that certain societies find unattractive or unacceptable, but it is sometimes less easy to
spot when methodological procedures (see above) bring with them cultural assumptions,
or where points of view clash with the classroom reality. Evaluating topics and themes (and
what the learners are asked to do) is vital if we are to choose appropriate material.
Teachers’ guides and teacher support We will want to see if the coursebook has a good,
clear Teacher’s Book to accompany it, and whether there is support in some other form.
For example, if we are going to use the software and companion websites that go with a
coursebook, it is important that we can find help when we need it (either in the form of
‘Help’ sites or via personal communication). The presence or absence of such help might
well be a deciding factor when we come to make our selection.

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Choosing a coursebook is much like making any other choice. It is up to us to get it right,
and this is why the best approach to materials selection is for us to list our own priorities and
beliefs before we start looking at the materials themselves.
There are three other things to say about choosing coursebooks. The first is for us to ask
around and try to find other people with experience of using the materials that we are
interested in. This will often give us important information and guide us in our evaluations.
Secondly, one of the best ways of knowing whether a coursebook is going to work is to
pilot it with one or two classes before adopting it throughout a school or institute. If we teach
with the material and keep the kinds of records we suggest in 6.3.1, we will have some real
evidence on which to base our ‘yes or no’ decision.
Finally, when we have two or three possible coursebooks to choose from, it is a good idea
to show them to the kinds of students who are likely to use them and get their feedback
about which they might like best. Even where such evaluation is somewhat superficial
(probably because of time), it will give us yet more information to help us make our decision.

4.9.5 Designing our own materials

Some of the best materials that teachers take into class are their own. Often these are
designed to add to what is in a coursebook, but they can also be replacements for what is
there. The best ‘home-grown’ materials are made when teachers cannot find anything which
satisfies them for the purpose they have in mind, and so, as a result, they design their own
activities and exercises.
When we are designing our own material, we need to consider a number of
questions, which include:
What will it achieve? We have to be sure about exactly what we want our students to
achieve. We need to predict what they will be able to do as a result of using the material
we are designing. We can then – when the students have used the material – see if our
predictions were correct. This is similar to the way we design lesson aims (see 12.4.1).
Does it pass the TITO test? One of the key considerations with any activity or any set of
materials, is whether they pass the TITO (time in time out) test (see 11.2.4). We need to be
sure that the amount of time we spend using the material in class – and the benefits of using
it – justifies the time we spend preparing and making it.
Will it be easy to use? It is important to think carefully about how easy – or, at least,
convenient – it will be for both us and the students to use the material. When things are too
complex, they often become demotivating for many students.
Can I use it again? If we are going to spend time developing our own material, we will
want to be sure that we can use it more than once. Some of the best material is multi-
purpose, too, in that it can be used at different levels (of complexity).
Will it engage the students? This is the most difficult question to answer, of course,
because we don’t really know until we have tried it! But if you really enjoy planning the
material, and if you feel really enthusiastic about it, that is a good start.

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