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What is the secret message in the Wordle above?

Have you guessed it?

If you are pretty happy following your coursebook page after page and exercise after exercise without omitting anything, then this post may read somewhat strange to you.

If on the other hand, you have spent the best part of every book exhibition hunting for the perfect course book for your class, here is what the message above says:


“There is no one ideal coursebook! Even the one you yourself wrote for last year’s class will probably not be good enough for next year’s class!”

Resign to this idea  

no coursebook is perfect! 

You might be interested in exploring a principled way of looking at and ‘fixing’ coursebook faults.

But First things First!


cbksclouddeivetect

Learn to …

  • ·     Analyze it
  • ·     Evaluate it
  • ·     Keep the good stuff
  • ·     Throw out the bad stuff


Then, learn to…

Animate it! 

You might ask “Why? Is is dead?” (yep – pretty much 🙂 ) 

Heaven's Gate
Photo Credit: Hartwig HKD via Compfight

Well, if your course book is not motivating your learners to talk, if learning English is a chore for them and for you, if your learners cannot contain their yawns, even if they are motivated adults, if they have better things to do in class, like send text messages or tease their friends, you might as well have brought a dead cat in to teach your lesson!

   KARAVEL - 05 0042

Postscript
The ideas in the slide presentation are good for making a coursebook come
Related Posts
Working with Coursebooks – Gathering Intelligence, Making a Choice
Visual Delights & Spike Milligan

The ideas in my presentation are good for making a coursebook come alive but, hopefully, you can find them useful as ideas for overall good materials design whether it involves adapting material you have found or material you are creating from scratch.

Here is a short version of my seminar which I presented as a Pecha Kucha at the Virtual Round Table Conference in 2010

Related Posts

  1. Working with Coursebooks – Gathering Intelligence, Making a Choice
  2. Visual Delights & Spike Milligan

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