Thousands of Textbooks

            “Frank” is an English teacher who devotes a great deal of time planning his lessons. He develops wonderful activities in class; these tasks are complemented by the use of great materials designed by him or by other creative teachers. Frank likes to expose his students to listening sources, role plays, and visual aids, among others.

            This devoted teacher is the first to admit that he likes to work with textbooks as well, and that he loves all of them. He relies on printed sources to be used as a supplementary material in class. Frank also admits that even though he is not an expert, he can discriminate between a good book and a bad one just by giving a quick review, and this is because he has some simple tools to do it.

            This is the first time he is going to teach 8^th level. Thus, he has to be well prepared; he plans a great lesson, designs appropriate games, and organizes the room based on the activities he has planned. This time he also selects a brand new book to use with his students this year.

            Frank is eager to use this textbook because as he recalls “it was highly promoted by the editor and the salesman who showed up last week.” Every time Frank has a chance, he glances through the book and highlights its qualities. He is always willing to show his colleagues the reasons he has when picking up a course book; therefore, it is common to listen to him giving well supported lectures about it.

            This time Frank is particularly happy; he is asked to develop a workshop where other educators learn how to assess a course book and what to consider when choosing it. “There are thousands of textbooks.” starts Frank, “but only few of them are appropriate for your students.” he continued.

            Through the session, Frank revises different aspects to consider when selecting textbooks. He emphasizes on some elements like vocabulary that fits student’s needs rather than “having tons of useless words.” He suggests paying attention to the consistency of the vocabulary through the textbook. He also talks about the physical make up but most importantly about the content of the printed source. Cultural aspects, language integration, the use of updated and relevant information are some examples of criterion Frank’s develops during the workshop.

            At the end of the session, Frank feels satisfied because he thinks other teachers are able to judge a book in a deepest way. He believes that now they have the knowledge to select a good course book according to their student’s needs and reality.

            We all thank Frank and other teachers of different courses and workshops to help us when selecting the best materials to improve our English lessons and make them fun, adequate, and meaningful.

Materials from other colleagues

Materials from other colleagues

By Marlon Orozco Campos

EFL classrooms are enriched with the use of different sources and materials that complement the language learning process; those sources, when designed by EFL teachers themselves, seem to match all the requirements participants need in the process. However, if a teacher borrows materials from another teacher, he important details are easily reflected. That is exactly what happened to me when this week I borrowed two different sources memory game and a handout.  These teachers use their material to help in their lessons as an effective tool because they are their designs but when another teacher uses them the results could vary; for example the content could be different, the way the content is approached differs from teacher to teacher, the materials design could not be attractive for certain group of people, and so on. 

Colors, fonts, sizes, content, vocabulary, cultural background and other important elements can be judged from another point of view and/or perspective. It is possible to distinguish aspects that are not usually easy to discriminate; these elements may work from some educators but do not suit others however, the essential role of materials is to fit students learning needs as much as possible.

There are other useful ideas educators can exchange not only materials but also ideas and techniques to work with their students. There is an extended repertoire of listening tools that can be shared among educators; there are many appropriate songs that are good instruments to teach different elements of the language from listening comprehension to vocabulary, grammar and culture, for instance. Who would have thought that through songs students can learn another language or at least provide with a good practice during the EFL lessons? Songs are not only a good source; they are what students listen to most of their time, they know about music, about bands and singers; therefore, music in general becomes an excellent tool to learn the language.

Some students have also the possibility to take advantage of a meaningful English lesson by using dialogues, news, videos, cartoons and other audio-visual aids in the classroom. Sometimes teachers have access to a nice video or documentary but these teachers lack of ideas and adequate activities to take advantage of that material. On the other hand, there are some educators who have great ideas to use all these sources properly and effectively; these ideas must be shared with other colleagues. As a consequence, the learners will be rewarded with appropriate opportunities to use real language in a different, realistic and entertaining way. 

The experience of exchanging materials and strategies among colleagues must be not as part of an assignment but as common practice to assess more than judge or criticize; it is a positive way to see what others cannot see and give positive feedback as well as a good strategy to collect materials and have a material bank for everybody to use.

Designing for whom?

Marlon Orozco Campos

Blog Entry # 1

 

Designing for whom?

By Marlon Orozco Campos

Whenever teachers think of how they are going to teach a specific content with authentic materials, they are invaded by images and models of realia, course books, handouts, corpus and other language data be used as supplementary materials for teaching and learning activities.  

 That happens to Salvador (a fictitious name for this EFL teacher) who one bright and splendid day wakes up thinking about designing materials for their students to work with. All of a sudden he pictures a rainbow of colors, a parade of geometric forms, and a carnival of illustrations and pictures, font styles, and materials to be used.

 As soon as he brainstorms these great ideas, he gets the show on the road and starts looking for the illustrations he likes the most; it is going to be okay if he includes resplendent colors to create those useful materials, so he uses only his favorite colors. Most importantly is to enjoy the creation process; therefore, Salvador pays too much attention to the way he feels more comfortable when designing materials.  

Texts are sometimes difficult to find and Salvador is a very creative and skillful teacher, thus, he decides to write some impressive texts by his own hand. He writes some amusing dialogues and other great written sources for students to use in class. Thinking about the fact that some materials are not affordable by all the students, Salvador prefers to design something that lasts for a long period of time. In order to do this, he uses long-lasting materials wrapped in adhesive plastic or scotch tape. Although some are not beautifully decorated, it will take time to become useless.

Salvador is satisfied and contented for the great results obtained; his more visually-oriented students will enjoy these sources while learning and using the language. Additionally, there is going to be enough for everyone because Salvador contemplates the number of students; hence, he makes the necessary changes (materials adaptation) to be used by a large group of learners. Of course, this makes some of these pedagogical tools smaller but still fruitful. 

The lesson has started and Salvador cannot wait to have his students work with the new and excellent materials. However, after a while he cannot believe his eyes; he is tremendously astonished; he does not expect his students’ reaction towards the materials for the English lessons. Salvador’s master pieces do not fit as good as they are supposed to; he realizes that his favorite shiny colors are not his students’. He discovers that in spite of his excellent writing skills, the written materials he designed are not enough to provide learners with language used in real situations. Salvador finds out that his effort and creativeness are not sufficient to achieve language development, especially if the material is not related to other content areas. In addition, not only the visually-oriented learners must use it but also the students whose strong areas and learning styles differ among them and that their styles differ from others.

 Now he knows that that there are some simple, basic but relevant principles to consider when preparing and designing his sources. He discovers that there are some essential requirements when teachers design materials as well as some aspects provided only by the users of those materials. These factors are basically the spinal cord which motivates, stimulates, assesses and supports students’ learning process. This also provides meaningful feedback and language development. From now on when creating supplementary materials, Salvador will know that he is designing for his students not for himself.

Today Salvador is designing, adapting, and evaluating new supplementary materials to be used next class. This time he is sure he will succeed as his students because now he knows whom he is designing for.

just checking

hello, I want to know if this time it works; this is another blog.