1. Challenging the Course Book
Geoff Jordan
geoffjordan@telefonica.net
Innovate ELT Conference
Barcelona, May 2015
2. • Reporter: Why do you rob banks?
• Sutton: Because that's where the money is.
• Why do EL teachers use coursebooks?
• NOT because that's where English is. Because
they're told to.
Willie Sutton
3. Established ELT Classroom Method
•Teachers use a coursebook to lead students through
a sequence of lessons based on the presentation and
practice of discrete items of English grammar.
• Presentation: Declarative knowledge (conscious
knowledge that) instilled first.
•Practice: converts this into procedural knowledge
(unconscious knowledge how)
4. Assumption 1:
Declarative knowledge converts
to procedural knowledge
Wrong
• Knowing that the past tense of has is had
doesn't mean that with a bit of classroom
practice you can use had fluently and correctly in
real-time communication.
• L2 learning isn't like studying geography; more
like learning to drive a car.
5. Assumption 2:
SLA = mastering, 1 by 1, accumulating
structural items.
Wrong
•All the items are inextricably inter-related.
•No evidence of items being learned one at a time,
•or of 1 item being learned linearly.
The assumption that learners can move from zero knowledge
to mastery of negation, the present tense, subsect- verb
agreement, conditionals, relative clauses, or whatever, one at
a time, and move on to the next item in the list, is a fantasy.
Long, 2015.
6. Assumption 3:
Learners learn what they're taught when
they're taught it.
Wrong
– L2 learners follow their own developmental
route, a series of interlocking linguistic
systems called "interlanguages".
– The route is not affected by L1, learning
context, or teaching method.
– Teaching affects rate not route.
7. 1. Morpheme orders
2. Developmental stages of negation
3. Developmental stages of word order and
questions
4. Hierarchical acquisition of relative clauses
5. Pienemann's German acquisition order
Ortega, L. (2009) Sequences and Processes in Language Learning. In
Long and Doughty Handbook of Language Teaching. Oxford,
Wiley
Examples Of Sequences in Interlanguage
Development
8. • Stage 1 Formulas and one word sentences.
• Stage 2 SVO canonical order for German, The children eat
apple.
• Stage 3 Adverb preposing: Adverb S. V. There children play.
• Stage 4 Verb Separation. I have a house built.
• Stage 5 Inversion of S. & V. Then has she the bone brought.
• Stage 6 V. in final position in S.C. When I home go ...
• Order is fixed and no stage can be skipped.
• Led to Learnability and Teachability Hypotheses
Pienemann Processability Studies
Pienemann & Pienemann,1981; Johnston,1987; Clahsen,1984; Johnston,1987
9. What is SLA?
• A process of developing the ability to make
meaning in the L2.
• Facilitated by exposure to comprehensible
input, participation in discourse, and implicit or
explicit feedback.
• Mostly implicit, but conscious attention to form
can increase rate of acquisition and final
attainment.
10. So…
• Coursebook-based ELT is based on a faulty
description of language and false assumptions
about SLA.
• Bad results: Most students fail
• But: "Coursebooks impose order on chaos"
• Teachers don't follow the book: they subvert
the system of coursebook-driven ELT.
• Why not do it right?
11. Innovation = Back to the future
• Process Syllabus (Breen, 1987)
• Local teachers
• Locally-produced materials
• Implementing these = Revolution
12. The Process Syllabus: Example 1
1. Teacher designs first section of the course.
• Teacher leads learners thru a series of activities:
problem-solving, case studies, role plays,
presentations, discussions, …..…
• Uses worksheets, stuff from the internet, videos,
texts …...
• Does various types of focus on form, vocabulary
building, written homework.. ….
• Establishes a website for the class.
• Group work, pair work, whole class.
• Give them a taste of what’s possible.
13. Process Syllabus Eg 1 Cont.
2. Hour 8: Planning Session 1: Learners &
teacher plan the next section
3. Hours 11-19: Teacher carries out agreed plan
for Section 2
4. Hour 20: Planning Session 2: Learners &
teacher plan the next section
5. Hours 22 to 30: Teacher carries out agreed
plan for Section 3
6. Etc. Etc..
16. Piecemeal Reform
1. See language as discourse
2. Use the coursebook less
3. Involve the learners more
4. FonF not FonFs
5. Use local materials
6. Organise at local level
17. The Coursebook
This is not a book to be tossed
aside lightly. It should be thrown
away with great force.
(Apologies to D. Parker)
