How textbooks work

1. How textbooks work From ‘dogme’ to ‘pragme’ Simon Greenall International House Trust IH Directors of Studies Conference January 2013

2. How textbooks work Textbooks, criticisms and survival ELT’s life-changing responsibilities Complex problems and complex solutions Publishing and profits Textbooks and good teachers Sharing failure, reforming for success Creative compromise and pragmatic response

4. ELTNEWS: You never thought of writing a coursebook? Mario: Financially… of course. But never seriously. I firmly believe that what happens in my classes arises from the meeting between the students and me and the students and each other. How, rationally, can any outside person map this meeting out in advance? Suppose you go to have dinner with a few friends, do you all arrive with a pre-arranged conversation script? A coursebook is as daft and off-course as that. Feeling this, how could I contemplate writing one?

5. Mario Rinvolucri “Ambition, rage, jealousy, betrayal, destiny, greed, fear and the other Shakespearean themes are far from the soft, fudgey sub-journalistic, woman’s magaziney world of EFLese course materials.” The UK, EFLese Sub-Culture and Dialect on TEFL Farm, 1999

6. How textbooks work Textbooks, criticisms and survival ELT’s life-changing responsibilities Complex problems and complex solutions Publishing and profits Textbooks and good teachers Sharing failure, reforming for success Creative compromise and pragmatic response

8. Target culture Sample culture

9. … multipolarization economic globalization informatization.

10. … the principal tool to enhance international communication as well as scientific and cultural exchanges … conducive to laying a solid foundation for improving the overall qualities of our people … cultivating talent with innovative and cross-cultural capabilities … enhancing international competitiveness of China and communication skills of its people

11. … helps them better understand the world … acquire advanced scientific and cultural knowledge … spread Chinese culture … enhance mutual understanding and communication … more opportunities for education and career development

12. … cultivate the character of openness and tolerance … develop an awareness and capability for cross-cultural communication … promote the development of thinking … form correct life outlooks, values and high character attainment

13. … an increasingly interdependent community of nations… … internationalism is the hallmark of modern education … linguistic and cultural diversity are the hallmarks of internationalism

14. … more active thinkers … an economic-reproductive function … an ideological function … increasing the language resources available as Palestine competes in the global economy

15. How textbooks work Textbooks, criticisms and survival ELT’s life-changing responsibilities Complex problems and complex solutions Publishing and profits Textbooks and good teachers Sharing failure, reforming for success Creative compromise and pragmatic response

16. course design multi -syllabus course design organizing or principle syllabuses topics lexis grammar functions.

17. supplementary syllabuses reading writing speaking listening learning strategies socio-cultural competence

18. grammar syllabus natural order of grammar

19. methodology or an approach communicative classroom interaction pairwork information gap content-rich material learner-centred teaching and learning prescriptive or descriptive approaches

20. Where do the words we teach come from?

21. meaning contextualisation integration communicative activity sequences

22. layout and design white space visuals cosmetic artwork/photos functional artwork/photos typeface point size

23. yield

24. Rubrics consistency brevity clarity 1 Underline the true sentences. 2 Correct the false sentences. OR 1 Underline the true sentences. Now correct the false sentences.

25. teaching to an exam syllabus exam-oriented exam-specific

26. Content

27. Criteria for choosing a text A text should one or more of the following criteria: interest entertainment new information cross-cultural relevance Relevance to the learner’s personal experience

28. suitable lexical density suitable structural density attractive layout suitable length relevance to the hidden curriculum suitable for exploitation (communicative activity sequences)

29. book plan teaching units or textbook lessons review units prelims endmatter textbook lesson or classroom lesson

30. How textbooks work Textbooks, criticisms and survival ELT’s life-changing responsibilities Complex problems and complex solutions Publishing and profits Textbooks and good teachers Sharing failure, reforming for success Creative compromise and pragmatic response

31. ‘Accepting and reinforcing this state of psychological affairs (the disempowerment of the non-native speaker teacher) is a handy way for publishers to ensure that the standardised native speaker versions of English remain the status quo. … It’s called protecting your profit margin.’ Luke Meddings, The Guardian, 2004

32. ‘Coursebook writers are the arms dealers of the ELT profession’ #ELTchat 2011

34. The P&L • The total number of copies forecast to sell annually • The revenue from each item for sale • The number of years the publisher considers the product will stay in the market. Sue Jones, former Publishing Director, Macmillan Education

35. The future of coursebooks – digital publishing? Editing Breadth of appeal Funding Online access

36. ‘Do you really think you would have written what you’ve written if you hadn’t been obliged to do so by your publishers?’ Anon, Dogme yahoo list 2011

37. How textbooks work Textbooks, criticisms and survival ELT’s life-changing responsibilities Complex problems and complex solutions Publishing and profits Textbooks and good teachers Sharing failure, reforming for success Creative compromise and pragmatic response

38. 1.5 billion learners of English worldwide • 11.5 million teachers of English in PES and PLS • 90% are non-native teachers • Approximately 200,000 in the PLS • Approximately 100, 000 are CELTA/DELTA trained • So 1.3 million in the PES

39. How textbooks work Textbooks, criticisms and survival ELT’s life-changing responsibilities Complex problems and complex solutions Publishing and profits Textbooks and good teachers Sharing failure, reforming for success Creative compromise and pragmatic response

40. ‘Coursebooks don't just dominate the teachers' lives, they dominate the students' lives too’ Chiasuan Chong

41. ‘ … the reason that coursebooks are so often in the line of fire is that they DO to a large extent dominate and determine so many aspects of a teacher's day-to-day professional life. They (more often as not) instantiate the curriculum, provide the texts, and - to a large extent - guide the methodology.’ Scott Thornbury An A-Z of ELT blog

43. Due to a lack of training and support, as well as uncertainty about their own English language skills, coupled with learner and other stakeholder expectations about the role of the teacher, ‘many teachers feel insecure and disempowered.’ For teachers such as these, the courseboook is their lifeline. To suggest that they should abandon coursebooks and engage with the language that emerges from the socializing and communicative needs of the ‘The people in the room’ is simply disingenuous. Scott Thornbury (ibid)

44. How textbooks work Textbooks, criticisms and survival ELT’s life-changing responsibilities Complex problems and complex solutions Publishing and profits Textbooks and good teachers Sharing failure, reforming for success Creative compromise and pragmatic response

45. The ‘pragme doctrine’ • Teachers need our help. They don’t need to feel disempowered or downgraded by the devices they use to help them: eg technology • Teachers need to adapt to learners’ needs – a mark of good teaching • Teaching for exams or a formal curriculum is a reality for many teachers, it’s not teaching in inferior circumstances. • Teachers need approaches and methodologies appropriate to their cultural contexts

46. The ‘pragme doctrine’ (cont) • Teachers don’t always teach in ideal circumstances • Teachers need to be encouraged to use their own instinct, training and emotional sensitivity and intelligence to provide an honest response to their students needs, by whatever means they use. • Common sense and basic good instinct need to prevail. • Dogmatic principles need to yield to pragmatic awareness of the huge variation in teaching circumstances. We cannot afford to give them anything but the very best and most complete facilities and training.

47. How textbooks work Textbooks, criticisms and survival ELT’s life-changing responsibilities Complex problems and complex solutions Publishing and profits Textbooks and good teachers Sharing failure, reforming for success Creative compromise and pragmatic response

49. simon.greenall@btconnect.com @simongreenall