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Teaching language with textbooks
Understanding textbooks
A textbook is the teacher’s tool. It is to the teacher what the spade is to the gardener ... There are few better ways of wasting time and money than supplying inefficient tools to a skilled worker: conversely there are few better ways of increasing production and lessening costs than improving the instruments which the workers use. Michael West
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The short version
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1 Textbooks are found in most learning environments, and are therefore very important. 2 Although important, textbooks are not the same things as a curriculum or a syllabus. However, they
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are often treated as if they were.
3 Language teachers are not ‘textbook teachers’. They are language teachers. Textbooks can help this
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process, but teaching them isn’t – and shouldn’t be – the main teaching focus.
4 Teachers face many practical problems when using textbooks, e.g. they are out of date, they have
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been used before, or there aren’t enough copies.
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5 To maximize language learning, it’s important the teachers’ creativity is not restricted by textbooks.
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Introduction Answer these questions about textbooks in your language teaching environment.
2 Are textbooks the main teaching resource in your school?
Yes / No
5 Are the textbooks up to date?
Yes / No Yes / No
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4 Do your students like the textbooks they use?
Yes / No
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3 Do your students have enough textbooks?
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1 Do textbooks help you teach more effectively?
Yes / No
6 Do the textbooks have a communicative focus?
Yes / No
7 Have the textbooks been used before by students in previous years?
Yes / No
8 Do textbooks allow your teaching to be creative?
Yes / No
Do textbooks help you teach more effectively? Textbooks can be very helpful to teachers, especially new and inexperienced teachers. These benefits include: • a structure and an overview for the content to be learned; • teachers not having to spend so much time planning;
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