Your dream coursebook does not exist... You must create!
Finding the right coursebook is one of the most important tasks a teacher needs to undertake. Coursebooks are important teaching materials that will support the job of the teacher. This teaching material acts as a guide not only for the teacher but also for the students. In coursebooks, in general, there are clear objectives, aims and guidelines . For this reason, the importance of coursebooks should not be discarded. However, it should be acknowledged that no coursebook is perfect. Furtheremore, it may happen that you may not even have the possibility of choosing your own coursebook. Therefore, it is important to make an analysis of the book to corroborate how effective it is and what adjustments may be needed.
One Step at a time...
The process of analysing a whole coursebook can be overwhelming. Furthermore, to develop this skill may take some time and lots of experience. Therefore, it is necessary to take one step at a time. In Materials Design we started by analysing coursebook units. The aim of this analysis will depend on the method you choose to deliver your lessons. However, At Lenguas Vivas "JRF" we follow a TBL framework. Thus, all activities should have transitions and lead towards a final project by the end of the unit. Whatever the case may be, if you learn how to analyse coursebook by unit then it will become easier to analyse the whole of it.
Let's get started...
In order to evaluate a coursebooks unit, María Laura García (our Materials Design teacher) suggested reading "The Analysis of Language Teaching Materials: Inside the Trojan Horse" by Littlejohn, A. (2011).
If you would like to evaluate your own coursebook materials just with a click you can download "The Trojan Horse". It is a great chapter and will help you gain lots of teaching insights in order to create your own materials.
If you would like to evaluate your own coursebook materials just with a click you can download "The Trojan Horse". It is a great chapter and will help you gain lots of teaching insights in order to create your own materials.
littlejohn_materials_the_analysis_of_language_teaching_materials2.pdf | |
File Size: | 4256 kb |
File Type: |
You may also want to check :
materials_writing2.pdf | |
File Size: | 4513 kb |
File Type: |
My Work ...
The T did a brief analysis of the materials at her disposal from the coursebook/teacher‘s book: “Good news, bad news” , unit 13 “Stranger than Fiction”. Then she proceeded to design the handout with all the tools she had learnt so far.
If you want to check Unit 13 (Stranger than fiction) all you need to do is download the file below .
example_good_news_bad_news_stranger_than_fiction_1.pdf | |
File Size: | 331 kb |
File Type: |
Handout 1
handout_stranger_than_fiction_1.docx | |
File Size: | 459 kb |
File Type: | docx |
You may be wondering how I did all this... well before that I would like to explain what the task consisted of. Our teacher wanted us to analyse one coursebook unit using the theory mentioned above ("The Trojan Horse" and "A Framework for Materials Writing") .
FIRST STEP: Unit of analysis (This you will find at the bottom of handout_stranger_than_fiction above)
SECOND STEP : After analysing the unit, I had to create materials which I thought were necessary for the flow of the unit. Therefore, the aim of this task was to develop different tasks using as many tools as we could. Thus, the outcome shows a clear defined transition between the different task by linking them with the design of our own materials. As I said before, it is not a matter of creating from scratch but rather using what you have and to improve it. Here are the links to the tools I've used
Word Cloud:
http://www.wordle.net/
Newspaper Headline
http://www.imagechef.com/t/n8rm/Edici%C3%B3n-Especial
Graphic Organizer
http://popplet.com/
Comic Strip
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/
FIRST STEP: Unit of analysis (This you will find at the bottom of handout_stranger_than_fiction above)
SECOND STEP : After analysing the unit, I had to create materials which I thought were necessary for the flow of the unit. Therefore, the aim of this task was to develop different tasks using as many tools as we could. Thus, the outcome shows a clear defined transition between the different task by linking them with the design of our own materials. As I said before, it is not a matter of creating from scratch but rather using what you have and to improve it. Here are the links to the tools I've used
Word Cloud:
http://www.wordle.net/
Newspaper Headline
http://www.imagechef.com/t/n8rm/Edici%C3%B3n-Especial
Graphic Organizer
http://popplet.com/
Comic Strip
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/
Handout 2
In this task, my peer and I worked on an already existing lesson plan based on a "Monster University" video (an authentic video). What we did was to use some tools we had learnt in order to create our own handout and adapt activities. We tried to make it as cohesive and appealing as possible. Hope you like it!
Click the link below if you want to check the video (and based lesson plan)
http://moviesegmentstoassessgrammargoals.blogspot.com.ar/2009/11/monsters-inc-describing-people.html
Click the link below if you want to check the video (and based lesson plan)
http://moviesegmentstoassessgrammargoals.blogspot.com.ar/2009/11/monsters-inc-describing-people.html