Pick your metaphor: a course book is like a recipe? a springboard? a straitjacket? a supermarket? a holy book? a compass? a survival kit? a crutch?

McGrath ¹ lists these comparisons and points out that the themes of ‘control’, ‘support’ and ‘choice’ can be identified among them in the introductory chapter of his book the topic of materials evaluation and design. Whichever you prefer, nothing much has changed since 1984, when Cunningsworth ² pointed out that  there are few teachers who do not, at some point in their careers, find use for published course materials.  Even those who reject course books in favour of language emerging in the classroom must surely base that rejection on an unsatisfactory experience of course book use. Interesting a question as it is, this post is not about whether or not the needs a course book meets can be better addressed without it. Rather, it takes Cunningsworth’s statement as a given. If we’re also assuming that teachers, given the chance to influence the choice of course book, have a responsibility to base their decisions on more than novelty, familiarity or surface aesthetics, it’s clear that teachers need some point of reference to evaluate a potential course book.

Published checklists such as those Tomlinson ³ lists in his state-of-the-art article are often criticised for not taking enough account of the context they are used in. The opposite criticism, of lacking genralisability, is made by Munkundan and Ahour ⁴ who recommend a framework able to generate criteria would be of greater use. So a teacher’s own evaluation framework, for one’s own context, will be best placed to meet local needs. Which brings us back to McGrath and his metaphors. An evaluator who wants a ‘recipe’ course book is likely to value different attributes to one who views the same book as a ‘supermarket’ from which desirable items can be picked up and others left on the shelf. Bearing this in mind, doesn’t a teacher-evaluator needs to decide on these principles before getting started on the work of weighing up possibilities? And what about our students? Whether or not you feel uncomfortable, as I do, with Roberts’ ⁵ view that materials are ‘used on’ learners, it probably isn’t disputed by many that what the learners think counts. And so, we should seek to understand their metaphors for course books as well as our own.

I’m going to address these two points in a future posts: what principles are often put forward and which ones apply to my teaching context? And how can we go about involving our learners in the process of selecting, creating or evaluating materials for use in their classrooms?

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