This document discusses strategies for making course books more learner-centered and interactive. It identifies some key techniques like using pair and group work, whiteboards, and pictures from students' local contexts. Specific strategies are provided for utilizing pictures, texts, and exercises from course books in ways that encourage more interaction and transfer responsibility to students, such as having students predict, role play, personalize content, and complete tasks in groups. The goal is to make course book material more meaningful and engaging for learners.

1. Classroom Interaction:
Getting More out of Course Books
galapagoselt@gmail.com
Kevin Hajovsky
Senior English Language Fellow
Galápagos, Ecuador

2. Webinar Objectives
“Course books are proposals for action, not instructions for use.”
(Harmer, 2001)
 Build our awareness of positive and negative aspects
 Learn & share strategies and techniques for effective use
PLEASE SHARE YOUR IDEAS!

3. Focus Question #1
 In your opinion, what are the
advantages and disadvantages of
using course books?

4. Potential Advantages
 Provide structure to class or semester
(vocabulary, grammar, and content)
 Guide class with sense of accomplishment
 Work as a starting point for extension activities
 Save a lot of preparation time
 Often expected by learners in schools
(Dalby, 2009)

5. Potential Disadvantages
 Creativity can be limited
 Quality, design, or organization can be poor
 Topics can be boring or irrelevant
 Contexts or content may not be culturally relevant
 Language is often inauthentic
(Dalby, 2009)

6. Focus Question #2
What general kinds of techniques do you use to create
more learner-centered interaction with course books?

7. Key Techniques for Creating Interaction
 How students are seated immediately affects how
they interact.
versus

8. Key Techniques for Creating Interaction
 Using your whiteboard effectively:
clarify how to use the language, provide support in the
tasks
Sentence Starters
Models of language
Language to guide or for students to exploit
Key words of instructions Focus questions
Sentence patterns
Brainstormed lists of words

9. Focus Question #3: The Big Question!
What are some of your specific strategies, ideas and
techniques for using course books more effectively?
…difficulties arise when we try to use textbooks exactly as they
are, without thinking about the needs, skills and circumstances of
the particular set of students sitting in front of us.” (Elliott, 2010)

10. Major Ideas Considered Here
 Use of books’:
 pictures (+other pictures)
 texts
 exercises
+ Key Techniques for Creating Interaction

11. Building Interaction: Pictures
Focus Question #4:
How do you use course book pictures in your classes?
“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
~Unknown

12. Building Interaction: Pictures
 With the picture(s) in front of them, contextualize
lesson by having students:
 make predictions about text
 ask and answer questions
 describe
 talk and/or speculate about (meaningful to students)
 share their own (personalize)
 knowledge of
 opinions of
 likes/dislikes
 preferences
 cultural comparisons
 role play (as if in the picture)
(Dalby, 2009; Tanner & Green, 1998; Witherspoon, 2012)

13. Building Interaction: Pictures
 Use pictures of students’ own country/city
(meaningful, relevant, and personal)
 Can adapt to course book settings and improvise.
E c u a d o r
(Baumgardener & Kennedy, 1995)

14. Building Interaction: Pictures
Use Tasks + Pictures Topics of Interest and/or
Related to Learners’ Actual Lives
• People
• Places
• Things
• Contexts
• Actions
• History
• Music
• Food
• Clothes
• Holidays
• Special events
• Customs and
traditions
• Culture
• Sports
• Sterotypes
• Common
occurences
• Climate
• Religion
• Politics
(Baumgardener & Kennedy, 1995)

15. Building Interaction: Texts
(Conversation or Reading)
Focus Question #5:
How do you utilize conversations or reading texts
in your classes?

16. Building Interaction: Texts
(Conversation or Reading)
 Predict/connect what’s in the text (with pictures)
 Copy and cut up the texts, students order them
 Running or shouting dictations, or dictoglosses
 Students add/change words in conversations for own
social contexts (adjectives, adverbs, local
vocabulary, etc.)
 Students draw and fill out graphic organizers together
(Dalby, 2009; Scionis, 1990; Tanner & Green, 1998; Witherspoon, 2012)

17. Building Interaction: Texts
(Conversation or Reading)
 Students imagine before or after a story or conversation
 Students compare and discuss answers to
comprehension questions
 Students personalize by giving advice and point of
views, or stating similarities/differences, preferences, etc.
 Vary setting, mood, or characters of conversation to add
creativity
 Role play or act out in pairs or small groups (with pictures
as settings?)
(Dalby, 2009; Scionis, 1990; Tanner & Green, 1998; Witherspoon, 2012)

18. Building Interaction: Exercises
Focus Question #6:
How can we use the exercises in course books
more effectively in classes?

19. Building Interaction: Exercises
 Students do and/or check answers in pairs/groups (before and/or
after practice or drills)
 Students ask class for clarification as needed (teacher oversees
only)
 Teams make questions to elicit answers from other teams
 Make a quiz game for checking answers (multiple-
choice, right/wrong)
 Copy and cut up exercises to make a team race game
 Students act out or draw answers (Charades/ Pictionary) while other
General Goal: Give students more interaction time
& transfer responsibility for learning to them.
(Dalby, 2009; Sionis, 1990; Tanner & Green, 1998; Witherspoon, 2012)

20. In Summary
Learner-
centered
Interaction
Book’s
Pictures
Book’s
Texts
Book’s
Exercises
 Pair work & Group Work  Whiteboard techniques
 Pictures of local context

21. Bibliography
*Baumgardner, R.J. and Kennedy, A.E. (1995) The use of local contexts in the design of EST materials. In Creative Classroom
Activities: English Teaching Forum 1989-1993, ed. T. Kral, Office of English Language Programs, Washington, D.C.
Dalby, T. (2009). Adapting your course book: Becoming skilled in the art of manipulation. TESOL Review, 1, 145-166.
Elliott, David (2010) The coursebook challenge. English Teaching Professional, 69, July 2010
Harmer, J. (2001) Coursebooks: A human, cultural and linguistic disaster? Modern English Teacher, 10(3), 5-10.
Harmer, J. (2010) How to teach english. Pearson Education Limited, Essex, England.
*Sionis, C. (1995) Let them do our job! Towards autonomy via peer-teaching and task-based instruction. In Creative Classroom
Activities: English Teaching Forum 1989-1993, ed. T. Kral, Office of English Language Programs, Washington, D.C.
Tanner, R. and Green, K. (1998) Tasks for teacher education: A reflective approach. Pearson Education Limited, Essex, England.
Witherspoon, J. (2012) English comes alive! Dynamic, brain-building ways to teach ESL and EFL. Synapse
Books, Bryan, Texas, USA.
*Free Downloadable Book and other materials on the American English website!
http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/creative-classroom-activities