Keywords:

AUTHOR, TEXTBOOK, MATERIAL, COUNTRY, LANGUAGE, TEACHER, CONTEXT, ENGLISH,

CLASSROOM, WRITING

Digest:
...In such cases they are likely to identify an experienced author or authors and
commission a textbook to be written, usually to tight specifications....
...(ii) A potential author or authors may develop materials (perhaps arising out of
their own classroom practice) and may submit samples to a publisher for
consideration....
...In such cases, there is likely to be a detailed planning phase, including a
baseline study, selection and training of authors, partnership with an institution
or with individual consultants from a native English-speaking country and the
production of some kind of specifications for the textbooks and any accompanying
supplementary materials....
...Is English a second or foreign language in the target context or contexts?...
...What use (if any) is made of the mother tongue in English language
classrooms?...
...(viii) the availability of funding and appropriate channels for in-service
orientation seminars aimed at familiarising teachers with the new materials (ix)
local procedures for official textbook approval (usually laid down by Ministries of
Education) (x) establishment of an acceptable variety or varieties of English to
suit local needs and the prevailing language policy....
...This is a particularly hot issue in contexts where English is a second
language....
...Most of the successful authors of globally successful coursebooks started out as
teachers and their ideas are rooted in classroom practice....
...However, the introduction of textbook projects in countries such as Romania and
Russia has seen a break with this tradition through the selection of practising
teachers as authors....
...The rationale for this is based both on the belief that many teachers, with
their immediate chalk-face experience, have the potential to write good materials
and on the perceived need to break into a 'closed shop' and broaden the local base
of expertise and capacity in the area of textbook authoring....
...It also has the advantage of sharing and spreading the workload, thus enabling
teachers to stay in their fulltime jobs (and incidentally to try out their
materials in their own classrooms) while writing....
...Criteria for the selection of authors included prior experience, cognitive
style, creative ability, ability to work in a team, willingness to prioritise
textbook writing over other commitments and even geographical location (to enable
sub-teams to meet on a regular basis during the writing phase)....
...Author training courses are likely to include components such as Materials
Evaluation, Syllabus Design, Teaching Methodology, Testing and Evaluation, ICT
Skills (including the use of corpora), Principles of Materials Writing, Language
Awareness and Cultural Awareness....