Textbook selection

There have been frequent noises against the current textbooks “Skills in English” used in IAT English classes. Many teachers in Al Ain and probably in other campuses feel the inadequacy of these curriculums and made suggestions to implement new different textbooks. This is what I gathered from the teachers and some students suffering the “curriculum”. However, I believe that there has never been evaluative study or revision for “Skills in English” textbooks.

A curriculum should necessarily reflect the needs of the learners. The needs of IAT learners of English are very simple and pragmatic; majority of them probably need English in the end to go for higher studies in local universities or / and go overseas. While in school, though, they need English to comprehend other subjects taught in English and communicate with their teachers. When selecting a textbook, we should keep in mind that “Learners are becoming more sophisticated, particularly through the influence of television and computer games, and they expect high standards of production and presentation, especially where visuals are concerned. They also expect textbooks to make learning easier and more enjoyable and can be quick to lose interest in dull and uninspiring material, no matter how sound it may be methodologically”.

It is impossible, in my opinion, to select a textbook based on the author’s blurbs or general impression. Selecting textbook has become even more challenging with the ever-increasing number of books being published across more and more areas of ELT to the point where it is easy to become thoroughly confused and overwhelmed by their sheer variety and by the competing claims made for them. Surely, we can form a general impression on a course book by looking through it and getting an overview of its possibilities and its strengths. This kind of impressionistic overview is useful and necessary to make a short list of textbooks, yet it is not enough for adopting textbooks. There must be more detailed analysis to ensure a good match between what the coursebook contains and the requirements of the learning/teaching

situation.

 For this, we need in-depth evaluation where selecting criteria are clearly stated to examine how specific items, language focus, learners’ needs and syllabus requirements are dealt with and presented.  One of the best methods for in depth evaluation is the checklists, (Sheldon, 1988). We can develop our own checklists -based on the Curriculum Framework- where all items correspond to the IAT teaching- learning situation. Although "textbook criteria are emphatically local”, I attach two universal checklists –to have a look at them and probably modify them to come up with a checklist that in depth help in selecting a core textbook for English curriculum.

 Omar Al Noursi

25-3-2008