Or am I just reinventing a wheel that is already out there in coursebook design?
(Digression: Mmm, yes - I'm dilly-dallying about with coursebook design again, which -- depending on your take -- means I'm continuing to explore the idea that coursebook design can improve and become more inclusive of innovative approaches to learning, or else proving yet again what a hypocrite I can be!)
Anyway, this afternoon I found myself pondering coursebook design (happens from time to time) and thinking about the potential for a single coursebook to cater to both "traditional" teaching methods and more innovative "task-based" ones, with more allowance for emergent language development (but without forcing the issue either way).
Having one's cake and eating it?
Or unnecessary? You know -- coursebooks are just a medium and all, and teachers everywhere know how to adapt and mess with them to come up with the teaching/learning approach that best suits their classrooms?
I believe in the potential for the above statement (that teachers can manipulate coursebooks in the right ways for their own classroom situations), but don't think it happens all that much in practice. I personally believe that what ends up on coursebook pages is actually really significant, because in so many contexts the coursebook becomes the syllabus and the approach, despite what trainers and writers themselves tend to advocate.
Hence this little experiment, whipped up this afternoon on my computer...
You'll have to forgive the design/presentation factors, of course -- this was done in about an hour and I was more interested in looking at the method/approach factor rather than anything in the way of elegant visual design. :-)
If you have the time and interest, I'd love it if you could look at the experimental coursebook pages below for a set of materials targeting speaking in particular for adults, and tell me whether the "hybrid" approach presented is interesting, feasible, useful or -- for that matter -- unnecessary.
Basically, the intention here is to present, on each page in the unit, a clear pair of options -- one more "traditional" or "academic" in approach, the other more "task-based" or relevant to learners' own emergent language and "exploration. A teacher (possibly in direct negotiation with the students themselves) could elect to apply the more tradtional/academic approach, or the task-based approach, or both (in a sequence going either way: academic and then explorer, or explorer and then academic).
Here's the opening page of the experimental unit:
Sorry I can't squeeze in a higher resolution version of the page in this blog space, but I hope you can see the basics of what are happening on this page.
In the "academic" blue box, teacher and students are asked to (A) think about and discuss potential questions to ask new people they meet. They are then presented with (B) vocabulary relevant to this topic and pulled out of the dialogue that will appear on the second page. They are asked to translate these words, to the best of their ability, into their own language, or to look them up. In (C) there is a pronunciation application with these words, involving some listen and repeat.
The "explorer" orange box approach, however, asks students to start by (A) having an actual chat with a new classmate. Following that, in (B), they are asked to try and recall a part (or all) of this quick chat and jot it down as a quick script. Finally, in (C), learners are encouraged to think about and take notes describing what was easy or difficult for them to do in having this chat with a new classmate.
Essentially, the class could take either approach and get an effective introduction to the unit (depending on your beliefs about the effective way to teach and learn), or they could do both together, with either side of the page coming first.
Right, over now to the second page of the unit:
Here, (D) is presented as a dialogue for the students to listen to and read (many ways a teacher could apply this of course).
Following that, the "academic" approach in (E) looks at ensuring students understand some basic details about the conversation, whereas the "explorer" (E) method asks students to compare this model dialogue to the one they scripted on the previous page (based on their own real conversation with a classmate), noting down any quick similarities and differences between the two.
Again, both approaches could be used here, though for the explorer one to be applied, teacher and students may need to go back to the previous page and do the explorer application there first.
The following pages of the unit then present specific skills, pronunciation work, "chunks" and pattern work, discourse awareness activities, and then (possibly) a reapplication of the "have a chat with a new classmate and write it down as a script". A language building/development section follows, and then the unit finishes with an expansion into integrated skills drawing more obviously on other skills like listening, reading and writing.
For each stage of the unit, there are study/application options that are either "academic" or "explorer" in nature, but not so mutually exclusive that they couldn't both be used in tandem.
So I'm curious as to your response/feelings about a coursebook approach like this one...
Would it "work" for you and your students?
Is it really necessary (or desirable) to present two different approaches to learning within the one unit?
Would love to get your thoughts, and hope you have the time and inclination to give them!
I'll also think about trialing them with my own ESL classes to see how they react, and whether they appear to have clear preferences about which aspects (academic or explorer) appeal to the students more.
=D
