Challenging the Course Book

Geoff Jordan geoffjordan@telefonica.net

Innovate ELT ConferenceBarcelona, May 2015

• 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

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)

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.

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.

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.

1. Morpheme orders2. Developmental stages of negation3. Developmental stages of word order and

questions4. Hierarchical acquisition of relative clauses5. 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 InterlanguageDevelopment

• 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

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.

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?

Innovation = Back to the future

• Process Syllabus (Breen, 1987)• Local teachers • Locally-produced materials

• Implementing these = Revolution

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.

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..

Process / Analytic Syllabus: Others

• Dogme • Long's TBLT• Willis' TBLT• ESP • EAP• ……• …….

Piecemeal Reform

1. See language as discourse2. Use the coursebook less3. Involve the learners more 4. FonF not FonFs5. Use local materials 6. Organise at local level

The Coursebook

This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown away with great force. (Apologies to D. Parker)