Discover practical tips for choosing a course book that truly fits your needs. Avoid common pitfalls and make your selection process more effective.
We want to change materials. We have to change materials because the book is no longer in print or available. Or we are starting a new course, and we need a book. For each different reason that exists for choosing a new course book, there are probably a hundred ‘checklists’ that ‘help’ with the process. And to be honest, most of those checklists are like coursebooks. By that, I mean they are in essence all the same.
I recently had to consider new materials and while the choice was quite an easy one, I wondered how I would have approached the task as a new manager. This blog is somewhat of a reflection on what issues I had previously when selecting materials, and what issues I think might arise. And as with all my blogs, some of my opinions might be completely irrelevant to you, but at least they will be food for thought.
Choosing a checklist
One of my biggest issues with some checklists is that they don’t actually help you choose between different materials. There are criteria like:
- All four skills (that is most textbooks if not all of them)
- Online components (again, almost all of them, and unless you force students, most of them don’t use the online components in my experience)
- Topics appropriate to age group and level – Have you opened, for example, a Young Learner textbook recently? They are basically identical. Animals, food, toys, places, clothes, family, etc. How much more creative can course book writers potentially get with everyday items?
My general feeling is, if a checklist item doesn’t actually force me to look through a unit in some depth, it is pointless having it. I generally ask myself these questions, and they have been very useful for me in terms of deciding between two or three books.
General appearance and size – Will the students like the look of the book? If it is for young learners, I really dislike books that are heavy especially if they also have an additional workbook, because our students have to take the books to school and carry it with them the whole day until they get to English class.
Methodology match – It is very important for me to know who will be using the book and for what purpose. That means my suggestions might differ from school to school, depending on the context and the teaching team. If teachers are very experienced, and they are able to structure solid task-based lessons, where the book functions more as something of a base, or to provide exam preparation tasks, then I will almost definitely select something different than if it was a short-term exam course. Often, if the teachers are experienced, and there is no specific exam outcome, I would advise against a textbook entirely and come up with a communication strategy to the consumer explaining why we don’t use a textbook, but teacher produced materials.
Productive skills – Almost all books cover all four skills. My issue is often not with how reading and listening is covered but how often, and poorly, speaking is covered. The speaking and writing tasks sometimes lack authenticity or scaffolding and might require a significant amount of work from the teacher. Is it not better then to just not have a book? With exam focused books, often the speaking and writing components mirror the exam tasks, and while this might be criticised, I much prefer this because it is often very authentic.
What checklists don’t tell you
These were often lessons I learned the hard way. So, I will tell you the area I considers and how that came about. If it is completely irrelevant to you, hopefully it triggers some thinking and reflection about areas that might be relevant to you.
What books are other schools using? I decided to use a very specific book for our phonics courses. A very big private elementary school near us were using the same book. So, we got many students who came in, and didn’t want to join, because the book is the same. Or worse, had finished, for example Book 2, and were nowhere near where we would expect a student to be at the end of Book 2, and then had to ‘do the same book again.’
Is there enough stock? I found a set of readers that I really liked. It was from a well-known publisher. I reworked the curriculum to include them, and we started reading classes. At the end of the first set (about 12 weeks) I wanted to buy the next set of books. The distributor was out of stock and we could get them after 3 months.
Consumer perception. I generally didn’t bother to look at books by local publishers until I realised students recognise the name of a local publisher or bookshop a lot more than they recognise Oxford University Press, or Pearson, or any other big publisher. Perhaps because the names are in a local language.
Have any of your teachers used the materials before? This is luckily not a ‘learn the lesson the hard way’ story. I asked if any of the teachers on the team I was working with had used a set of books before. One of them had taught using the materials for two years, and they had loads of additional unit linked activities and tests, and all kinds of ideas. In short, that teacher became the project leader, and all the teachers were extremely happy.
A final point here. If your teachers are encouraged to show creativity and create their own materials to supplement your course, you want to be sure that the materials you pick are a match to the skills you want to develop in your teachers. Even with very exam focused classes, teachers can come up
with localised materials that at times far exceed what you can find in textbooks, and these materials could be a great supplement for your course book. But only if the book actually allows for that kind of flexibility and creativity.
Looking forward
Choosing a textbook could be as simple as checking items on a checklist, but there are often things that we overlook. Also, if you are new to academic management, it might not actually be something you have ever had to do. I hope this gives you some grounding a few ideas to get you started. A really last point in terms of looking towards future decisions is to really make sure the students’ needs are at the centre of the decision.
