choosing a textbook
Choosing a textbook | Simon Cole | December 6th, 2000
Hello All,
Yesterday I was planning my syllabuses for next academic year, which for me, like most of you, involves choosing textbook. For the first time ever, I wanted to read the teacher's book to find out if there was a theoretical basis to the syllabus was. I happen to be doing CSD at the moment, which helps my motivation, but, by relaying this little anecdote to you, I want to say that I am becoming more professional through the MSc, in ways I can readily see.
Thanks to the team at Aston.
Simon Cole
Japan
Re: Choosing a textbook | Francesca | December 6th, 2000
Simon, I'm glad you shared your anecdote with us, but you left me wondering (and perhaps not only me) whether there was any theoretical syllabus to your chosen course book and, if there was, whether you agreed with it or are questioning it due to what you have learnt on the course.
Francesca
Re: Choosing a textbook | Rita Balbi | December 8th, 2000
Hi Simon,
I can well understand how you feel; I had a very similar experience when I was doing the TEFL certificate (Aston 1999) and was working on course design; just by chance in that period no my job I was planning a 500 hr course for primary teachers to qualify to teach English as a FL - The Aston course made me think twice about each word I was including in the plan!
Rita Balbi
Re: Choosing a textbook | Simon Cole | December 9th, 2000
Thank you, Francesca, for prompting me to go further with my anecdote. (In retrospect, I think it would have been more appropriate to have sent that message to our tutors, as it was addressed to them more than to participants.). You wrote:
... whether there was any theoretical syllabus to your chosen course book and, if there was, whether you agreed with it or are questioning it due to what you have learnt on the course.
I rang the publisher (and, get this for stupidity) asked if the teacher's book was available in the books stores because I wanted to study the syllabus in more detail before deciding to place an order. They said they'd ask around and called back a little later saying they didn't think it was, and would I like to order a copy? Well, if I'd asked straight out what the theoretical basis of the syllabus was, they'd have probably tried a little harder to answer. In any event, I haven't accessed the info, so I looked more closely at the student book. The title, by the way, is Commercially Speaking (OUP), an lower-intermediate Business English syllabus that is primarily structural (linguistic) and so, fairly traditional in that sense. However, it is strongly skills-based, which is one reason it suits my/our purpose - because I will team-teach with it, dividing the skills reading & writing in one class, speaking & listening in the other. I read a little during the TDA module about reading-to-write that impressed me. I'm guessing that the same may apply to listening-to-speak. These are the most salient feature of the syllabus. Beyond them, it attempts to be functional in some ways and each unit description ends with 'vocabulary', although I certainly wouldn't interpret that as meaning it has a theoretically lexical basis.
In terms of the key concepts in syllabus design (Willis, CSD U1 p 20):
The forms of specification (grammar/function/vocab) seem a little cryptic, as for the coverage, I'm not well-versed in business English to say how representative of the target discourse setting it is (I'd need to look at it again 'cause I can't remember rightly), but intuitively, it seems okay.
Bankruptcy - frankly I'm confused about what this is from Jane's description (CSD U1 p 12). Anyone care to explain it for me?
High and low surrender value - the economy (usefulness) of the language taught - I'd like to see it being more functional than it is.
Accessibility and audience - unit descriptions are reasonably accessible to teacher and student.
Accountability - no such animal exists at my university (sponsors, testing), to the learners (Chinese visiting students, almost all of whom have business and money-making on the brain) and future employers it is as accountable as its coverage and surrender value is good, and in as much as it is not bankrupt.
Generative capacity - again, I'd need to look more closely to give a well-inform answer, but as there is quite a lot of linguistic specification/ grammar rules, I'd say that a substantial amount is adaptable to other situations.
Well, by doing this little (!) task you set me, Francesca, I've learned a lot about analyzing syllabuses and how little I had actually analyzed the textbook! So, to answer your question, Francesca, in the light of the above analysis, I'm not particularly happy with it but it's my first choice for now because each unit follows a Listening-Speaking, Reading-Writing sequential format. I am used to structural syllabuses, but my CSD reading to date certainly has me questioning the value of them. In fact, after reading David Willis' The Lexical Syllabus, I'm keen to give that (Collins COBUILD English Course) a go. I'm really convinced by the high surrender value of it. RITA - if you got this far, I really recommend it to you.
Simon Cole
Japan
Re: Choosing a textbook | Jonathan Clifton | December 9th, 2000
I suppose bankruptcy is when a method/approach no longer has validity in the eyes of some or all of the stakeholders.(learners, teachers, linguists etc). So, I suppose we could say that the audio-lingual approach is now bankrupt (or could we????).
Talking about financial metaphors in ELT, I have just used this quote in my MAP assignment from Stevick "teaching language; a way and ways" (1980:121):
"This alpha and omega of a good lesson, this source and goal of all other components, can be stated quite simply in one word "pay off". What will the students be able to do, as a result of the lesson.......".
Nice metaphor but why so many financial metaphors in ELT????
By the way the other components he mentions are giving samples of language in use and exploring grammar and the lexicon.
Best wishes
Jonathan
Re: Choosing a textbook | Pinkie | December 11th, 2000
Greetings fellows MSc-ers...
Moving on to the Simon's thread about CSD, I'd like to comment on bankruptcy... I'm not sure that Jonathan's suggested definition accords with what I understand this term to mean. [Truth be told, what little understanding I have is based on a recent single-afternoon CSD workshop in Madrid, very interesting but very short: so what follows to be taken with large pinches of NaCl]. I understood a low-bankruptcy syllabus to be one that will be relevant to a student over a large proportion of her "lifetime learning process"; a high-bankruptcy syllabus will cover only a relatively small stretch of that process. If my understanding is more or less correct, I wonder whether the word "bankruptcy" is rather unhelpful: perhaps "length of coverage" (as opposed to "breadth of coverage") might be more transparent?
Anyhow, I haven't seen the definition of this term, on p 12 of the CSD module according to Simon. Would anyone have time to post it to the list?
I'd certainly agree that the idea of "durability"/"shelf-life" mentioned by Jonathan is relevant. Though I guess it's rather hard to judge whether your syllabus is going to lose validity in the future: much easier to predict this in the case of materials per se, e.g. a unit written now about Britney Spears will presumably be rather stale in a couple of years' time!
One final point on CSD: does anyone (apart from a smallish proportion of textbook writers) ever actually find the time to go through the whole CSD caboodle for a given course? I ask because I don't: it seems like a sort of unattainable ideal, for some Golden Future when I'll have the time to do everything properly (and read Shakespeare, and study German, and learn to draw, and all that other stuff...)!
Best,
Pinkie
Spain
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