Thinking of the Textbook in the ESL/EFL Classroom

Wang Wen-Cheng,Lin Chien-Hung,Lee Chung-Chieh

doi:10.5539/elt.v4n2p91

Abstract

Textbooks provide novice teachers with guidance in course and activity design; it assures a measure of structure, consistency, and logical progression in a class; It meets a learner’s needs or expectations of having something concrete to work from and take home for further study; It may provide multiple resources: tapes, CDs, videos, self-study workbooks etc. While the quality of ESL reading textbooks has improved dramatically in recent years, the process of selecting an appropriate text has not become any easier for most teachers and administrators. Thus, the paper discusses for evaluating reading textbooks for use in ESL/EFL classrooms. Classroom teachers spend much time using textbooks in class, so choosing an appropriate one is important. And the paper describes the role of the textbook. Using this will make the textbook selection process more efficient and more reliable.

Highlights

Textbooks and related teaching and learning materials/media have been adapted continuously to the ever-changing and growing challenges and demands of learning English as a foreign language, to new findings in foreign/second language research and theory construction and to advances in information technology, scholarly views on the role of the textbook and recommendations on how to use it in everyday classroom practice very often reflect little more than personal opinion and/or common sense
The paper discusses for evaluating reading textbooks for use in ESL/English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms
The administrative de-emphasis of the teacher in the second language classroom would suggest that teachers must learn how to integrate and organize content of a textbook to make learning an interactive and meaningful experience, as opposed to an act that can be completed alone by self-directed study with a textbook

Summary

Background

Textbooks and related teaching and learning materials/media have been adapted continuously to the ever-changing and growing challenges and demands of learning English as a foreign language, to new findings in foreign/second language research and theory construction and to advances in information technology, scholarly views on the role of the textbook and recommendations on how to use it in everyday classroom practice very often reflect little more than personal opinion and/or common sense. A practical, thorough, and straightforward method for choosing ESL textbooks is to analyze the options according to program issues, going from broad to specific. The strategy behind this technique is to eliminate unsatisfactory textbooks at each stage of analysis so that only the most appropriate are left at the end, making the choice clear and manageable. While the quality of ESL reading textbooks has improved dramatically in recent years, the process of selecting an appropriate text has not become any easier for most teachers and administrators. The paper discusses for evaluating reading textbooks for use in ESL/EFL classrooms. Using this will make the textbook selection process more efficient and more reliable

The Role of the Textbook in the English Classroom

English Textbook in Teaching and Learning

English Textbook Selection and Evaluation

Conclusions