Adopting and Adapting an existing course book

Adopting and Adapting an existing course book

1. The main idea is look at the relationship between the teacher and existing course books,to help teachers clarify the roles that they, the couse book and learners play in the curriculum design process and provide teachers with a rational approach to follow when deciding to adopt or adapt a course book.

2. Dividing the parts of the process

   • Content and sequencing
     • What language content? What ideas content? How much covered? How often covered?
       • Course book responsability
   • Format and presentation
     • How Presented? What format for the lesson? Who presents?
       • Teacher responsability
   • Monitoring and assessing
     • What , when, how and who assessed?
       • learners responsability

3. The teacher and the course material.

   • Strong Reliance (minimal adaptation)
     • Teachers may follow the course book very closely , making only small essencial changes and additions
   • Adapting a course book
     • Teachers may wish to make substantial changes to it. There are several reasons for doing this, and these could be classified as responding to the environment, taking account of needs, or putting principles into prcatice
       • Add or omit content, change the secuencing of the content, change de format, change de presentation, add or omit monitoring and add or omit assessment.
   • Using source books instead of course book
     • Learners would be better served if teachers did it not use course books but assembled their courses by drawing on a variety of source books such as conversation books , timed reading books, intensive-reading books, listening texts, as well as teacher-made material.
   • Using computers and internet
     • When the envoronment analysis and needs analysis favour the use of technology, it is most important that teachers consider how the use of technology fits with the course principles. One considerarion is whether the new technology will contibute to the course goals more effectively tan before

4. Evaluating a course book

   • Essencial features: Reducing the list of possible books
     • The teacher need to decide what features are absolutely essencialfor the wanted course book. Any course book without these essencial features would not be worth considering further.
       • The book should be the right vocabulary and grammar level for the learners, should focus on the language and skills that are the goals of the course, should be bellow a certain price, should be readily available , the size and number of lessons in the books should suit the length of the course and should not include behavior and topics that would offend the religoius an cultutal sensitivities of the learners and their parents.
   • Choosing and weighting the features
     • Add features that you consider important but which are not on the list
     • Take away features from the list so that is contains a manageable list of features, living preferably no more than 10 or 12.
     • Divide the features in the list in two or three groups in order to decide which features are very important, which are important, and which are desirable but no so important.