What’s Wrong with ESL Textbooks and How to Fix Them

What’s Wrong with ESL Textbooks and How to Fix Them

Harvey Utech, Sc.D., MBA

Poznan, PolandNovember 22, 2009

Harvey Utech, Sc.D., MBA

Poznan, PolandNovember 22, 2009

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Choosing a Text is Difficult at Best

Needs of the studentsInterest of the studentsRight mix of reading, grammar, vocabulary, etc.Availability of support materialsStyle, writing, & designCost

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The investment is substantial:

Price

Coursebook £ 22.60

2 Cassettes £ 38.99

2 CDs £ 38.99

DVD £ 99.71

Skills Book & CD-ROM £ 20.30

Workbook & CD Pack £ 14.80

Teacher’s Book w/Pack

£ 23.40

Total cost: almost £ 60 per student; over

£ 200 for the teacher!

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Then there are the mechanical problems associated with choosing

Have to get a copy of eachTime-consuming to read them allEasy way out: pick one you are already familiar withThat makes it difficult for publishers to succeed with new textbooks, increasing their costs and driving up prices

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Speakers at BeSIG/Bonn/2008 took a dim view of textbooks; some quotes:“As no book/material is adequate .

. .”“. . . CBEC courses do away with the need for coursebooks” “Move away from coursebooks and discover . . .”“. . . will we still be using traditional printed materials to teach Business English in the future?”“. . . informed choices can be difficult - whether to use published materials”“Business English Texts [have] their limitations.”

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I also take a dim view:No textbook has exactly what I want in itTypically, they have reading, listening, comprehension, vocabulary, discussion exercises in every chapter.Some are excellent, some are good, some are poor (or at least not what I want for my class)BUT I can’t change them!Nor can I use what I like and leave what I don’t!

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Most texts can meet some of our requirements but not all of themWe Can’t pick and choose from the best because

they are not in electronic form (xerox machine)illegal to copy and distribute parts of book due to publisher’s copyright

New vocabulary introduced by the text not in a form convenient to learn

To put it another way,

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And let’s face it,

Improving one’s English is some-thing a good ESL book could enable one to do on his/her ownFor some, it may even be better and faster than in a classroomAnd in case you haven’t noticed, most publishers suggest their books can be used for “stand alone” learning

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As teachers, we know the classroom setting is better for the average student than stand-alone, if we do our job well

And part of doing our job well is selecting the right material.And books, the way they are now published on paper with copyright protection, keep us from doing that. And it keeps publishers from benefitting from our know-how.

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What can be done to fix that?

That’s what the first part of this workshop is all about.

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Here are my suggestions on what publishers should do

Adopt a more flexible copyrightLet us change/improve their contentLet us mix-and-match and custom-make our own printed textbooksPut vocabulary associated with each exercise online in either a:

5-step formatflash-card format

Allow me to explain

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Let’s take a look at traditional copyright . . .

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Traditional Copyright

Copyright* gives the author of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation, after which time the work is said to enter the public domain.Virtually every ESL/EFL textbook on the market is protected by the publisher’s copyright.That means that the only way to use it is to buy it.

*Excerpted from Wikipedia: “On-Demand Publishing”

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Now, there’s an alternative to traditional copyright

vs.

TraditionalCopyright

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Alternative Copyright

Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only if they give the author or licensor credit in the manner specified by these.

Licensees may copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only for noncommercial purposes.

Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based on it.

Licensees may distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work.

alte

rnat

ives

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Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only if they give the author or licensor credit in the manner specified by these.

Licensees may copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only for noncommercial purposes.

Licensees may distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work.

The choice publishers should make:

This will give us teachers the flexibility we need.

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Publishers would display their licenses as follows in their textbooks:

There is a full description the license associated with these symbols in the legal language of the country you specify on the Creative Commons website (next slide).

or

1818

GermanyGermanyU.K.U.K.

1919

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If publishers copyright their work under this type of license,

we coulduse their material without paying for itmodify the contents and republish the work under the same kind of license

neither we nor the publisher couldsell our modification for profit

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Allow us to print our our own books made up of the materials we select (or do it for us (POD)*Print on demand (POD) is a printing technology in which a book is not printed until an order has been received. Digital printing makes this possible.While the unit price of each physical copy printed is higher than with offset or letterpress printing, the average cost is lower for small print runs, because setup costs are much higher for offset printing.

*Excerpted from Wikipedia: “On-Demand Publishing”

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POD has benefits for the publisher too*:

Technical set-up is much quicker than for offset printing because we do most of it.Large inventories of a book do not need to be kept in stock, reducing the publisher’s storage, handling, and inventory costs.There is little or no waste from unsold products.

*Excerpted from Wikipedia: “On-Demand Publishing”

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A coursebook we can be happy with

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Pearson now offers

custom publishing

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That’s a big step forward but . . .

I still can’t modify Pearson’s copyrighted materialI can only take chapter-by-chapter from Pearson’s existing texts; can’t take individual parts of chaptersCost?

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Enter vocabulary onto learning software

Let’s take a look first at the 5-step plan for learning vocabulary

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5-Step Plan to Learning Vocabulary

• Purchase some DIN A7 file cards (Karteikarte) and a file box with five partitions.

• On the front of each card, write the English word you wish to learn and below it, a sentence that illustrates how the word is used.

• On the back of the card, write the German translation.

turn drehenPlease turn the key.

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DayDay BoxBox KnowKnow Don’t KnowDon’t Know

of Class 1 2 1

3 days later 2 3 1

5 days later 3 4 1

Weekly 4 5 1

Exam 5 Discard 1

Summary: 5-Step Plan to Learning VocabularyYou can set up the timing in any

way that works best for you.

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The Digital Alternative

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Advantages for the Publishers

Continue to control book marketCan set up site for derivative works based on their materials; charge reasonable access fee (e.g. £ 10 monthly/(£ 100 annual)Can make money on print-on-demand booksGet continual feedback from teachers on which materials work best.

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Advantages for Teachers

Can get the materials we wantCan change (and improve) the books we have to use nowCan readily find other teachers’ solutions to serving the needs of classescan publish our own books for the classes we teach

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Summarizing my three suggestions to EFL publishers:

1. Replace traditional copyright with a Creative Contents license

2. Offer print-on-demand3. Make vocabulary

available in dict.cc

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Richard Baraniuk

4:30

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So let’s start building our own EFL “Knowledge Ecosystem”

Let’s hope the publishing industry takes the lead.But if not . . .

See you next year!