In my own situation – teaching English in a state school in a non-English-speaking

country – I preferred to use a coursebook. I found that a set framework helped

me to regulate and time my programme. Perhaps surprisingly, it also provided a
firm basis for my own supplementary teaching ideas. I could do my own thing
occasionally, knowing that I had a structured programme to return to.
Coursebook evaluation and selection
It is my experience that students also prefer to have one. The classes which I
have tried to teach using a selection of materials from different sources have
from A Course in Language Teaching 2nd edition
complained of a sense of lack of purpose. And, interestingly, that they feel that by Penny Ur, 2012
their studies – and, by implication, they – are not taken seriously. It©seems that University Press 2012
Cambridge
having a coursebook may carry a certain prestige.

14.2 Coursebook evaluation and selection

Whether or not you choose to base your course on a coursebook, it is worth
thinking about how you recognize a good one, and why you might reject or
criticize it: in other words, what are your main criteria for evaluation. These
criteria may be general (suitable for any language-teaching materials) or specific
(looking at the appropriateness of a set of materials for a certain course or group
of learners). An example of a general criterion might be: ‘clear layout and font’, or
‘provides regular review or test sections’. A specific criterion for a class of younger
learners might be: ‘attractive and colourful illustrations’, or for a class of medical
students: ‘vocabulary and texts relevant to medicine’.

The general criteria suggested below are my own, but they rely on ideas suggested
in a number of books and articles on the subject (see some useful sources in
Further reading at the end of this unit).

Task
Read the list of criteria for evaluating language-learning coursebooks below. In the
left-hand column, use the following symbols to note how important you think each
criterion is:
✓✓ for ‘essential’ (without this I wouldn’t use the coursebook)
✓ for ‘quite important’
? for ‘not sure’
✗ for ‘not important’
✗✗ for ‘totally unimportant’ (it wouldn’t make any difference to me if it was there
or not)
Then, optionally, add further criteria you feel are significant in the spaces left
at the end, and mark in their importance. Ignore the Applied column for the
moment.
If you are working in a group, compare your ideas with those of colleagues. Then
read on.

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Checklist for coursebook evaluation

Importance Criterion Applied
1. The objectives are clearly explained in the introduction,
and implemented in the material.
2. The approach is educationally and culturally acceptable
to the target students.
3. The layout is clear (both the book as a whole and single
pages) and the print is easy to read. If digital, then it is
easy to ‘navigate’ from page to page.
4. The material is attractive.
5. The texts and tasks are interesting.
6. The texts and tasks are varied, appropriate for different
learner levels, learning styles, interests, etc.
7. Instructions are clear.
8. There is an explicit syllabus, which is covered
systematically.
9. Content is clearly organized and graded.
10. There are regular review and test sections.
11. There are pronunciation explanations and practice.
12. There are vocabulary explanations and practice.
13. There are grammar explanations and practice.
14. There are tasks that activate the students in listening,
speaking, reading and writing.
15. The material encourages learners to develop their own
learning strategies and to become independent in their
learning.
16. There is adequate guidance for the teacher (teacher’s
guide, or teacher’s notes).
17. There are audio recordings available.
18. There are visual materials available: posters, video,
flash cards, etc.
19. There is a coursebook website, with guidance and
supplementary materials available.
20. The material is easily available and not too expensive.
21.
22.

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1. Objectives. This is important, but check that the objectives expressed in the
introduction to the coursebook are in fact implemented. Often they are not!
2. Approach. How important this is depends on your approach and the student
population. Some communities are more sensitive than others.
3. Layout. This is vitally important. The material has to be clear and ‘navigable’:
both you and your students need to be able to find your way around it easily
and smoothly. You need to be able to read the texts easily (so it is not a
good idea to have artistic fonts, or pictures behind text which make reading
difficult). You also need to be able to move around it easily if it is a digital
course composed of a lot of webpages and links.
4. Appearance. This is particularly important for younger classes, but may be
less so for older ones. Children and adolescents are used to colourful and eye-
catching books, television and websites and may be demotivated by black and
white or uninteresting design.
5. Interest. I would rank this as quite important. On the one hand, skilful
and imaginative teaching can make even the most boring texts and tasks
interesting (and bad teaching can ‘kill’ the most interesting ones!). On the
other hand, it helps a lot if the book provides interesting material that you
can use, adapting as necessary for your classes.
6. Variation. This quality is one that is often missing in coursebooks. There
should be some texts which are easier or more difficult. Tasks should be
designed to allow for performance at different levels. Texts and tasks should
vary also in the topic, the kind of language style, the type of participation
or learning strategies they require, etc. The lack of variation is not a reason
to reject the book, but if it exists it is a positive feature. So I would rank it as
quite important (see Unit 19: Learner differences (2): teaching heterogeneous
(mixed) classes).
7. Instructions. Essential. For a monolingual class of beginners, this may mean
providing instructions and explanations in the L1.
8. Syllabus. Essential. Check what kind of a syllabus the coursebook has. This
should be clear from the table of contents at the beginning (see Unit 13: The
syllabus). Does it provide coverage of all the items you think are essential?
And are these items in fact covered in the material itself? You may need to
check that the coursebook follows syllabuses which are relevant to your
teaching situation, such as the CEFR, a national syllabus, or the syllabus of an
exam such as ESOL.
9. Organization. Systematic progress in difficulty is very important for courses
in primary and secondary schools. However, it may not be as important for
courses in academic English or other more advanced programmes.
10. Review and test. The inclusion of these features may or may not be
important to you. Review exercises and tests are sometimes provided on the
course website, rather than in the main materials themselves. Often, however,
you will prefer to create your own. What you actually teach is never exactly

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what the coursebook provides: you may skip some bits and add others, in
which case the coursebook reviews and tests might not be suitable. So this
component is probably less essential than some of the others.

11. Pronunciation. How much emphasis is put on pronunciation teaching

depends on the approach in your teaching situation, so the evaluation here
would also vary. Pronunciation problems can often be dealt with as they
come up, so you do not necessarily need a systematic programme in the
coursebook.
12. Vocabulary. This is an essential component. The materials should provide
plenty of vocabulary expansion and review activities.

13. Grammar. Like pronunciation, how much emphasis is put on grammar

depends on the local teaching situation. In many contexts substantial
grammar coverage is required, but in others it is not. So the evaluation is
likely to range from ‘essential’ to ‘not sure’.

14. Listening, speaking, reading and writing. Tasks activating the four skills
are the main basis for communicative practice. And they are essential. The
coursebook should provide texts and tasks that promote fluency and accuracy
in the four skills in communicative situations, as well as activities that provide
opportunities for students to do ‘mixed-skills’ activities.
15. Learner independence. Whether the materials encourage learner
independence and autonomy is quite important, but it is a very difficult
aspect to evaluate. Some things to look for are computer-based tasks which
enable self-checking, and research tasks that students do on their own, such
as ‘webquests’.
16. Teacher’s guides. Teacher’s guides are quite important, particularly – but not
only – for novice teachers. The teacher’s materials provide not only answers
to exercises, saving time and effort, but also useful tips on ways of dealing
with texts and tasks.
17. Audio recordings. This is an essential component for listening comprehension.
Without them, you would have to look for material on the Internet or on CDs.
It is very difficult to find suitable material for your class from either source, so
you really need ready-made ones that accompany the course. If the recordings
are on video, so much the better.
18. Visual materials. Visual materials such as posters and flash cards, whether on
paper or displayed digitally, are essential for classes of younger learners. They
provide an enjoyable break from the coursebook, focus attention and are
likely to improve learning. However, they may be unnecessary for older and
more academic classes.
19. Website. The course website is a fairly standard component these days.
Often the audio recordings and teacher’s guide can be found there, as well as
supplementary exercises, tests and texts, and links to other useful websites.
It is not absolutely necessary, but it may be quite an important added
resource.

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20. Availability. This is perhaps obvious, but essential. The most desirable
coursebook in the world is no good if it is too expensive for your institution
or students to afford, or if it is not easily available in your country.

Action task
Now take a coursebook and examine it, applying the criteria you have in your list.
Write your ratings in the Applied column of the table. You could use a similar code
to the one used above in the first task in this section (✓✓ or ✓ indicates a high or
very high score, ✗ or ✗✗ a low or very low score, and ? indicates that you are not
sure, or that the criterion applies partially).
Again, you can compare notes with colleagues who have looked at the same
materials, and see how far you can agree on the different items.

14.3 Adapting course materials

This section applies both to standard coursebooks, as discussed in Sections 14.1
and 14.2 above, and to materials such as published grammar exercises, reading
comprehension texts, worksheets – all of which may, of course, be presented
either on paper or on a computer.

All teaching materials should be related to critically by the teacher. We need to be

aware of their strengths and weaknesses in order to make the most of the former
and compensate for or neutralize the latter. If there are gaps in the material (for
example, if the coursebook does not provide enough reading texts or grammar
practice), the problem can be solved by a quick ‘surf’ through the Internet, or
by adding supplementary grammar or reading books. But problems with specific
components within teaching units can only be solved by the teacher in the
classroom. You may find it necessary to make substantial changes, deletions and
additions.

Here is a sample of problems that teachers in particular situations might

encounter, where the solutions might involve such changes to the text or task.
Note that no criticism is intended of the extracts in themselves: they are all
interesting and well written. It’s just that they may not, for various reasons,
address the needs of a particular group of students.

Task
Look at the teachers’ criticisms, and think about how you might go about solving
the problems. Then read on to the What we can do section below, and annotate with
any further ideas you had yourself that I had not thought of.

Paolo (teaching in a primary school in Italy): It’s important to do lots of

grammar practice with my students, but exercises like this one are rather
boring, the students get fed up doing them. And they’re too short: don’t give
enough opportunities for practice.

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