I presented this workshop at ISTEK Schools International Conference in Istanbul on March 28 2010. The topic is a real favourite of mine and forms the basis of a lot of training work I do – teachers, after all, do have to use coursebooks, despite the arguments against them, and they have to have the tools to make the most of them.

So, without further ado, here is my powerpoint presentation, with a little bit of added zest here and there for the benefit of those who were not at that fabulous conference!!!

I would appreciate any feeback to the ideas in this presentation – whether you were there or not, please write comments, especially if you have tried any of the ideas in the powerpoint presentation.

Postscript

The ideas in the slide 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

This is a quick post to publish the links and some of the videos shown to the members of TESOL Greece who attended my talk on March 15.

With apologies to readers who were not present at this talk (if this doesn’t make sense to them)

In the first part of my talk we looked at what online teaching involved and the types of learning situations it might be most appropriate with; then we looked at different types of virtual classrooms where I had some great examples of online lessons in Elluminate very kindly supplied to me by Heike Philips to whom I owe a great big thanks! (These examples cannot be shown here).  Below you can see a quick example of some of the things you can do with Vyew, a short screencast I did myself (no Russell Stannard stuff, so please be lenient!)

Example with Vyew

Second Life was also mentioned and as my audience was not familiar with it at all, I tried to show them some examples of lessons as well a short interview which Heike Philp was kind enough to give me the day before.

Second Life & Inteview with Heike Philp

Finally, we looked at different ways in which teachers can promote themselves by joining online learning outfits (listed below) or creating their own promotional material, networking, online CVs, etc..  The examples which follow – of promoting Modern Greek Courses in Second Life – are the result of the EVO course I recently followed and I have not yet used them on my own website, but they were shown as samples of what is possible.

Modern greek in second life promotion material

An example of an online brochure made with Yudu

An example of a promotional video

The promotional video above icludes a few moments of my first ever time teaching a foreign language in Second Life; Heike Philp recorded this lesson and used a few scenes as well as screenshots and various messages. This project was part of an EVO course which I followed with Heike as course leader on learning about promotion tools for online or offline work.

Outline of the talk and related useful Links

• Online Classroom Spaces – Where you can teach online

Elluminate http://www.elluminate.com/

Dimdim http://www.dimdim.com/

WiziQ http://www.wiziq.com/home/

Vyew http://vyew.com/site/index3

Second Life http://secondlife.com/?v=1.1

Mindmap (a great mindmap which is still under construction!) http://www.mindmeister.com/maps/show_public/44333165

• Wikis, nings and other tools – Ways of Supporting Online Learning

http://www.wikispaces.com/

http://pbworks.com/

http://www.ning.com

http://voicethread.com/

http://www.wordle.net/

http://www.tokbox.com/

Class blogs  wordpress. Edublogger, Blogger

• Online Learning Outfits –  How to Promote yourself & find students

Edufire http://edufire.com/

Myngle http://www.myngle.com/

Languages out there http://www.myngle.com/

Animoto

Yudu

Photopeach

Here are the slides I used during my presentation

…… A few days ago, during the International House DOS conference, the talks were made available online and there was a somewhat heated discussion about Hugh Dellar’s presentation which came under the title of “The Curse of Creativity” *

You can watch the whole presentation if you follow this* link. The talk lasts for about an hour and I did sit through the whole of it.

On the same day, another talk on creativity was retweeted, one of the TED talks which most of my readers will have heard. The title is “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” and it is a much shorter talk, about 20 minutes, by Sir Ken Robinson. But the length of this talk is not why I would recommend it so warmly to everyone in my PLN and not recommend the previous one.  You may wish to listen to both before proceeding further.

Here are some of the tweets from the day I wrote this post and some from the day when the talk was first “aired”.

I do seem to have been terribly annoyed with Mr Dellar, don’t I?

The two speakers represent two extremes for me both in terms of what I think of their views on creativity as well as in other ways.

Hugh Dellar and his Curse of Creativity talk

Hugh Dellar’s talk promotes a highly negative attitude towards the need for any teacher to be creative. To support his argument, he draws a lot of what he considers to be evidence of the lack of necessity for creativity from various trainee teacher observations, most of which, always in my view of course, are evidence of misinterpreting some principle of planning or a misunderstanding about materials design. This is what trainee teachers often do, that is why they are called trainees and not expert practitioners or teacher educators or materials writers, like Mr Dellar.

And yet, he seems to believe that on the basis of this rather shaky evidence, which his audience accepts with great mirth and on which they all have a rather good laugh, the rest of the world has to buy the idea that teachers do not need to develop or enhance their creative thinking skills and that the call for being creative, has made your average poor teacher go bananas when they plan lessons and in their desperate pursuit of creative activities, well, they will use just about anything.

Sir Ken Robinson and his Do Schools Kill Creativity talk

Over on the other side, Ken Robinson, presents a completely different stance towards the need for creativity. His talk is not about the need for teachers to be creative; what he talks about is the absolute necessity for equipping learners with creative thinking skills since, as he suggests, as educators, we are preparing them for a future none of us can foresee.

His talk does not deal with quite the same angle  – i.e. on whether teachers need to be creative or not.  He talks about all students today whom we are preparing to be adults in an unknown tomorrow.

But it is not very difficult for anyone with brains other that pea-size to extrapolate from this and understand why everyone, including educators, needs to develop or enhance their creative thinking potential, for dealing with the unpredictable and new, a task which educators have to face on an every day and every minute of teaching basis in every class they teach.

Other Reactions to both presenters

There are other reasons why Mr Dellar annoys me beyond telling as a speaker. Apart from being totally uninformed as to what constitutes creativity and what we need it for in our daily lives, let alone in the demanding profession of being an educator and apart from using examples which do not prove his points, he commits another faux pas, that of having a very good laugh at the expense of his trainee teachers. OK, we got it that he is a great teacher educator and that he works for a particular teacher education centre which he is probably marketing in some way.

Personally, and if I were in need of some training, I would not touch this centre with a bargepole for fear of having my teaching endeavours ridiculed in all his future talks.

Mr Dellar also fails to laugh at himself entirely. When he is not laughing at his ex or current trainee teachers, he is being quite perscriptive and serious about how useless it is to be a creative teacher. I suppose he is hopeful that all need for creativity is satisfied if only we were to use the coursebooks he has authored.

Contrary to this rather smug and self-satisfied style, Ken Robinson, presents a short and very pithy talk in which most of the jokes are directed against himself and no one else.

I find this extremely refreshing. He not only drives the point home about how important it is to be creative but he also gains the sympathy of his audience by exhibiting his great sense of  humour – a type of humour that I am certain most of my readers will appreaciate a lot. He has other great qualities, of pausing for just the right amount of time, of having a great sense of rhythm and pace, etc.. etc… I think it was also my musician’s ear that loved this talk and the same ear which cringed at the other one….

On the “day of the tweets” above, I  must say I was not the only one to exhibit this very negative reaction towards Mr Dellar. Many others expressed similar views and some, even worse.

So may be we should start thinking about being good presenters and speakers already!  The conference season has started and some of us will be going here and there presenting papers, workshops etc.

So, what are the qualities of a good speaker?

I am inviting the members of my PLN to express their views here of what are some of the qualities of a great or very good presenter/speaker. It would also be great if we could put together a red hot list of people we should all try to go and listen to, whether they are native or non native speakers, whether they are male or female.

It would also be nice to know who to avoid.

I already have one on my list – Mr. Dellar – but there are others, too, and not for exactly the same reasons. For example, although I have great respect for what David Nunan has written, after having listened to him speak at the most recent TESOL Greece conference, I would never ever attempt to sit through one of his talks again.

Please come forth and declare your preferences.  I could use the advice!

P.S.  I have opted not to discuss the concept of teachers needing to be creative in this post at any great depth or length. My interest was in commenting two different styles of presentation and their impact on me.

If interested in reading more about this topic, may I ask you to read an article I wrote quite a while ago about the why’s and how’s of teachers being creative. The title is “The Art of Being Creative” and in my talk in April 2010 at IATEFL in Harrogate, I will be talking about activities that will help our learners develop their creative thinking abilities.

* The asterisked parts included links to the videotaped talk – these links have now been removed by IH and lead to other content on their website.

As a result, the comments in this post may seem entirely unsubstantiated but, hopefully, the comments of my readers below who did watch the same talk will not make them entirely irrelevant.

Free Subscription to this blog

If you liked this article, please share it and subscribe to receive regular updates to this blog either by leaving your email in the appropriate box or by subscribing to my RSS feed here 

These are the handouts from a talk I presented to the members of TESOL Greece in 2007. I have copied-pasted them directly from Word so the layout may not be fantastic but I have posted it here so that members of a recently started googlewave may copy and collaborate on in order to create/generate a new checklist of criteria for coursebooks as we would like them to be in the future.

I. Details of Coursebook & Class Title & Level:

1. 1. Accompanying materials. What is available?

• cassettes
• workbook
• teacher’s book
• companions
• grammar books
• video-tapes
• readers
• CD ROM
• DVD
• Support Website

2. Average age of your students:

3. Average class size:

4. Seating arrangements in your class:

5. Which coursebook did you use before this one?

6. If it is part of a series, does the next level follow on well or is there a gap?

II. Initial Selection

1. What are the main reasons that make you choose a coursebook? Please, tick as many as appropriate and add more reasons if they are not listed.

• No units
• Length of units
• Layout of unit
• illustrations
• Topics
• Texts for reading
• Recorded material
• Structures
• Functions
• Material for controlled work
• Vocabulary Activities
• Grammar consolidation exercises
• Reading activities
• Listening Activities
• Speaking skills development
• Development of the writing skill
• Project tasks
• Lack of more suitable material
• Timetable fit
• Guidelines for the teacher
• Practice material in workbook
• Pronunciation practice
• Age of your students
• Exam practice material
• Logical & clear progression
• Other (please specify)

III. New Language Items (Structures/Functions)

1. Is the syllabus in the coursebook organised according to structures, functions or both?

2. Does the syllabus cover the items you feel appropriate or necessary for this level?

3. If so, do you agree with the order/sequence in which they are presented? What would you suggest if you do not agree with the ordering?

4. If the syllabus does not cover all the items you would wish to see at this level, which ones would you add?

5. Which items would you omit?

6. Is there sufficient material for grammar practice? Do you have to use any supplementary ma­terial? If so, what other material do you use?

7. Do you feel that the grammar practice material in the coursebook helps your students use it on a long term basis?

8. Is there any material for remedial work? If not, do you feel there should be some in every unit or every so many units?

9. Do all the items merit the same amount of remedial work? If not, which ones merit more attention?

10.ls there enough of the following for the practice of grammatical/functional items?   (Yes or No answer)

• Items presented in context/situation
• Concepts clear to the students
• Clarity of form
• Information about use
• Controlled oral practice
• Personalized practice
• Freer oral activities
• Fluency tasks
• Written consolidation in context
• A clear, concise summary of the main points

IV. The Vocabulary

1. What’s the treatment of vocabulary in your coursebook like? Please tick.

• Appropriate for the level
• Appropriate for your students
• Too many items per unit
• Too few items per unit
• Meaning illustrated well
• Useful presentation material
• Vocabulary guessing tasks
• Consolidation activities
• Checking activities
• Use activities (oral/written)
• Vocabulary games
• Revision across units
• Collocation activities
• Vocabulary work in phrases

2. Do you need to supplement coursebook work with extra vocabulary activities? If so, what kind? What are some of the sources you use?

V. Pronunciation work

1. Is there any work on pronunciation?

2. Is it enough for your students’ needs?

2. Do you consider the tasks included useful?

3. Has your students’ pronunciation improved as a result of the tasks included?

4. Is there sufficient material to cover the following areas of English pronunciation?

5. Please, look at the areas listed in 4 above and consider whether the practice material available is suitable for recognition/ear-training as well as for student production of the desired features

6. If your first language is not English, what kind of extra help would you, as a teacher, need in terms of pronunciation practice?

VI. Listening skills development

1. What percentage (of time) per unit is given to listening?

5% (  )               10% (  )                         20% (  )                         30% (  )                         40% (  )                         50% (  )

2. Which of the following activities are included in the coursebook)

3. Please, look back through the activities/objectives of No 2 and asterisk the ones which you consider essential whether they exist in your coursebook or not.

4. Please, comment on the quality of the recordings

5. Are the topics interesting to your students?

6. Is there enough variety of listening texts?

7. Are there any authentic recordings? If so, from what sources?

8. Do you feel that the taped material is a fair representation of the way native speakers speak? Whatever your answer may be, how do you know?

9. What types of taped material and activities would you like more of?

10. Overall, do you feel that your students have become better at listening due to the material and the skills training in your coursebook?

VII. Reading skills development

1. Is there enough variety of text?

2. Are the texts appropriate to the level and age of your students’?

3. Are the topics interesting & motivating?

4. Which of the following activities are included in the coursebook?

• Reading to understand the main points
• Reading authentic texts
• Lead-in activities prior to reading
• Reading for specific information
• Note-taking while reading
• Variety of comprehension tasks
• Vocabulary guessing activities
• Follow up speaking activities
• Follow up writing
• Diagram (map, grid, flowchart) completion

Please, asterisk those tasks from the list above which you feel should be included whether or not included in your course book.

5. Overall, would you say that this coursebook ca help your students become better/faster/more efficient readers?

6. Will you need  to supplement this coursebook with extra reading? if so, list your sources

VIII. Speaking activities

1. Comment on the speaking activities in your coursebook. You can score them on a scale of 1 5 (5 being the highest and 1 the lowest score in each category)

• Amount                                                 (1 ) ( 2) (3 ) (4 ) ( 5)
• Relevance                                             (1 ) (2 ) (3 ) ( 4) ( 5)
• Usefulness                                             (1 ) (2 ) (3 ) (4 ) (5 )
• Manageability                                       (1 ) (2 ) (3 ) (4 ) ( 5)

2. Which of the following speaking activities are included in your coursebook?

• Mechanical drills
• Meaningful drills
• Role play
• Guided discussions
• Free discussions
• Problem solving
• Information gap/exchange
• Simulations
• Games
• Oral reports
• Story telling
• Priority activities

3. Do you introduce any other activities apart from those found in the book? What type?

4. Do you consider any of the activities mentioned above difficult to use or unsuitable for your classes? If so which ones and why?

5. As a result of using this coursebook, do you think your students may become more fluent speakers?

IX. Writing Activities

1. Which of the following general types of writing are included?

• letter to friend
• formal letter
• postcard
• report
• composition
• diary writing
• story
• speech

2. Are the writing tasks you ticked above appropriate to the level and age of your class?

3. Is there enough guidance/preparation for the writing tasks?

4. Are the writing tasks meaningful and contextualised?

5. Does the book give students any help with the following aspects of writing?  Enough or not? Write YES or NO next to each activity type.

• Punctuation
• Paragraphing
• linking devices
• sentence patterns
• sentence ordering
• choosing the right words
• layout (e.g., letters)
• use of reference words {e.g. ‘he’. It’)
• types of paragraphs
• organisation of ideas
• getting ideas, getting started
• drafting, editing, revising

X. Contexts & Topics

1. Are they relevant to your students’ needs, lives and culture?

2. Are they interesting to you?

3. Do you think they will interest your students? How do you know this?

4. Is there a story line in the book? Yes ( ) No ( )

5. Is the choice of topics in the book generally appropriate for the age group you are teaching?

6. Is there a variety of topics and themes?

XI.General Balance/Amount of:

XII. The Teacher’s Guide

Look at the Teacher’s notes and pick the adjectives or phrases from this list which best describe them for you. Please, circle or underline as many as you think appropriate.

clear                                             confusing

brief                                              long

concise                                        vague

indispensable                            unnecessary

interesting                                 uninteresting

easy to follow                            cluttered

well-ordered                             muddled

learner centred                        teacher centred

a life saver                                  useless

adequate                                     inadequate

extra activities                         nothing extra included

Please, add as many other adjectives or phrases as you wish to this list.

3. What should the ‘ideal’ Teacher’s Book contain in your opinion?

XIII. Other Support Materials

1. If there are other support materials how often do you use them?

2. What would you like more of ?

XIV. Student Reactions

A good idea is always to pilot a unit of work

1. How do your students like the material? How do you know this?

2. Are there any parts of each unit that they usually like doing? Which ones? Please, be as specific as you can.

3. Which parts do they usually not like doing? Why?

XV. SUMMARISING COMMENTS – You and the material

1. How far does this coursebook satisfy you as a teacher? Why / Why not?

2. Will you use it again in future? If not, what will you replace it with?

© CELT Athens @ Marisa Constantinides