Teacher in Development

Over the last few months I’ve noticed something really interesting in my classes.

1. It’s usually easier to use the coursebook. Why? It does the thinking for you.

2. Using a coursebook is like stepping into, and being swept away by a fast moving river. Once you’re in, it’s really hard to get out.

3. Use a coursebook and you instantly are considered “acceptable” to students and admin. Your class is somehow made kosher and sound.

4. Energy spikes may happen when using the coursebook, but remember - you’ve fallen into a current and it’s hard to break away. That energy spike may have been sparked by the something in the coursebook, but if you are a coursebook purist you will very quickly stomp out the flame in order to move on to the next exercise.

I just read a really interesting article over at the Guardian Unlimited website called Embrace the parsnip. While I found the entire article to be very interesting, this one liner really got to me: “The more you teach without a coursebook, the more aware you will be of the energy drop when you do use it.”

Boy is that true. I’ve really noticed this in my classrooms, where I’ve been going “coursebook free” in one, and strictly following it in another. My coursebookless class is usually harder to prepare for, but energy levels (read: passionate interaction) are usually quite high.

Our discussions are normally around what is interesting to my student like: customer service, advocacy, social software, education, and digital natives vs. digital immigrants. Class time literally blows by us. Time is forgotten.

On the other hand, my coursebook classroom usually runs like clockwork. Everyone arrives, sits down, and opens their book to where we left off from last class. I literally feel the current tugging us along.

I love getting into conversations, on or off topic with my students, but in this classroom - the coursebook classroom - I for some reason feel a burden to return to task, to stomp out the fire before we lose control and slow our “progress” down.

But what is progress in the ESL classroom? Is it about finishing a coursebook in six months? Is it about racing through your class plan?

Or is it, as the article suggests, more in line with the student’s life?

I say it’s the latter. The more I learn how to let go of the “security” of the coursebook, allowing for reality to break into my classroom, the more authentic and real language acquisition will become.

What do you think?

Source:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/tefl/tching/story/0,,1690419,00.html