In our very first seminar on English language teaching materials, prior to anything more than cursory reading on the subject, I became involved in a discussion on the role of course books. Predictably, it featured a mixture of broadly negative stated attitudes blended with a reluctant acceptance, a kind of tacit recognition of each other’s guilt. Whether out of busy-ness, lack of time for alternatives, apathetic students or dictates from school management, we have all been that teacher who defers to ‘The Book’.

But we do not attend these seminars to hate on each other – but rather in the hope of ideas, inspiration, encouragement and the tools to do a better job. And so our conversation moved on with my suggestion that what I would really like from a course book would be the removal of labels such as ‘B2’ and ‘Intermediate’ from the covers. The rest of this post is going to account for that wish. I have discussed elsewhere the arguments that rage on surrounding the use of course books in general, and the more I read on this subject, the more I realise there is to think and say. Having said that, this post is based on the assumption summed up by Hutchinson & Torres ¹ when they claimed that ‘the textbook is an almost universal element of ELT teaching’.

With going on eight years teaching experience, the majority of it in UK private language schools, I have had my fair share of difficult conversations with learners. They may be newly arrived and eager or six months in with dwindling motivation. In either case, I have often had occasion to be the bearer of unwelcome news, coming in the form of one of the following realities: Firstly, that having completed level X in their country does not necessarily qualify them for a class at level X+1 here, especially if their previous studies involved a lot of gap-filling and rote-learning and minimal amounts of actual language production. Secondly, that having completed the majority, or even the entirety of course book Y at level X here at language school Z does not guarantee their immediate progress to level X+1. Frustratingly, there is every possibility that the powers that be will deem it more beneficial for a given learner to remain in a class at level X but with a different course book. Or in third place, perhaps the most vexing of all, that I cannot give an answer to the question of how long one need remain in level X before progressing to level X+1, and crucially, whether or not it will happen in time for level X+1 to be printed on their leaver’s certificate.

A single learner may be on the receiving end of any or all of these disappointing statements. A further point to consider, and one which is rarely shared with the learner, is that in many private language schools commercial and administrative realities, as well as what amounts to nothing more than luck, can have more of an impact than true abilities. For example, institutional restrictions on how large or small a class can be and the numbers of students enrolled at each level; the nationality mix within a given group and the desire on the part of school management to keep this, in line with their marketing promises, as mixed as possible; the size of the class one ends up in, and the frequency with which this class is disrupted by large numbers of departures and new arrivals; the learner’s individual strengths and weaknesses and the teacher’s ability to see past personalities and stereotypes to the language actually being produced and understood; not to mention the expertise of the teacher and their capacity and enthusiasm for differentiation, the lengths that they go to to ensure that each and every learner is making maximum progress – in my experience, these are some of the influences that come to bear on the questions of which level and for how long. It is unfortunate but only to be expected that at some language schools where I have worked in past, the deciding factor is a student’s capacity for vocalising complaint. No-one wants an unhappy customer.

But what of the course book? How is my answer to the question of what I want from a course book connected to the unfortunate reality of the private language school being, first and foremost, a money-making enterprise? To my mind, the fallacious notion that a ‘level’ is something absolute, that it is something that learners ‘have’, something which can be attested to by a gap-filling test, that it is a fixed and regular system which works in the same way for us all is not helping teachers or students to make the best of that reality. Even those learners deemed to be of similar ‘levels’ will have individual strengths and weaknesses across the language skills, differences in their declarative and procedural knowledge, gaps between and overlaps in their prior experiences, varying approaches to formal study and contrasting cultural backgrounds and so any way of structuring a course which is based on the aforementioned fixed principles espoused by course books is not going to be helpful.

There are arguments elsewhere (see Geoff Jordan‘s SLA based argument, Lindsay Clandfield sitting on the fence in a guest post for Scott Thornbury, Hugh Dellar‘s article, pointing out the need for teachers to be materials-literate and recognise that course books are not one homogeneous beast, Scott Thornbury & Luke Meddings‘ passionate dismissal and Steve Brown‘s summary of how this question has occupied the ELT blogging community) about whether a course book is the best way to meet these varying needs but that is not the point I am making here. Which is, rather, that the course book, in its current five-six level form, doesn’t help learners to recognise where they are and where they want or need to be. In some cases, it stops them understanding or articulating the true problem with a class. In others, it prevents them from recognising the value in the lessons.

If the main virtue of the many-levelled course book model is that it sells books what would an alternative better suited to the reality of my classrooms that I described above look like? This is the question to which our seminar discussion turned. Well, it would have texts – things to read and watch and listen to. And it might have ideas for tasks or projects or activities. And the teachers’ notes would be important, because they would give the teacher ideas for how to exploit the texts and crucially, how to do this in a differentiated way that would take into account the differing needs of the learners. Level references would be banished and instead the whole book would be based on the principle that a teacher can grade a task rather than a text. That was about the extent of it. I hope you will remember that I am reporting on a discussion in the first seminar and forgive the under-developed nature of these ideas.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised when I realised, a few weeks later, that this is not a new notion – in fact a new approach to materials production was put forward by Prabhu ² in 2001 based around, it would seem, similar ideas to those we had discussed in that first seminar. According to these proposals, materials could ‘provide a range of possible inputs without envisaging that they will be used in any one classroom or that all classrooms will use the same inputs‘ ³. What most appeals to me about this statement is the implied empowerment of teachers. It seems to be saying that the decisions to be made about whether and how and when to approach a particular topic, task or piece of language should and can be made by the teacher in consultation with the learners as opposed to by the writer of the course book.

Prabhu’s proposals go into further detail about how his ideas might be achieved in practice. These are categorised as semi-materials and meta-materials. An example of semi-materials would be a single listening comprehension exercise or a role play. These would be written and published by someone other than the teacher but decisions as to the delivery of the materials would be theirs to make. Publications such as Miles Craven’s Listening Extra are good examples of resources that could be considered semi-materials by this definition. This isn’t quite as radical as I had in mind in my dismissal of many-levelled coursebooks. Prabu’s suggestion for an alternative is a collection of texts presented in their raw form. That is, without direction as to how they should be used. Responsibility for exploiting the text for language and task design falls on the teacher. I can imagine this would work well coupled with Prabhu’s meta-materials, which Maley ⁴ defines as ’empty pedagogical procedures’. To my mind, this refers to those processes, activities or tasks that the experienced teacher carries around in their head, ready to pull out at an appropriate moment. I see a value in these being formalised in written form; firstly to serve as a reminder in stressful moments and secondly to allow all teachers to benefit from the experience of others. Does this exist already in some form? I have made use of a fairly extensive range of teachers’ resources during my eight years in the classroom and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this. Does anyone think differently?

If I’m right in thinking that no-one has ever seriously acted upon Prabhu’s proposals, then what is the reason for that? Are teachers insufficiently skilled to make a meta-materials approach work? Or are they just too busy – overworked and underpaid to the extent that they actually don’t want the kind of responsibility that this approach would imply? Perhaps ensuring minimum standards of teaching is more of a concern to school managers than empowering teachers to make decisions? Or is it just not in the publishers’ interests? Has anyone tried teaching this way? I’m interested in your thoughts!