Page 134 - Teaching English at Primary Level: From Theory into the Classroom

Language Learning Materials

Table 8.1 Pros and Cons of Using Textbooks for Teaching an FL
Pros Cons
• Provide teachers with a structured cur- • Often show an idealised view of the world and
riculum and clear lesson objectives. fail to take into account the learners’ cultural
• Give the teacher a sense of direction context.
and continuity. • May be inauthentic and not really representative
• Provide well-designed resources which of language use, with a lot of repetitive material.
are attractive for YLs because they are • Often fail to meet the needs and level of local
oftenbright and colourful withlotsof learners, they may be too easy or too difficult for
pictures and images. them.
• Are a good source of language. • May be relied too much on by teachers who
• May save precious teaching time as they might feel they have to cover every point in the
provide teachers with supplementary book.
materials such as flashcards, posters, au- • Are often followed like recipes, encouraging
dio material, etc. teachers to be less creative and innovative.
• Are useful for novice and less experi- • Are usually designed for an average student so
enced teachers. they rarely cater for mixed-level classes.

is also worth noting that a number of modern textbooks have managed to
successfully integrate these aspects by including a variety of materials and
activities suitable for YLLs.
Generally speaking, there are both several benefits and drawbacks of us-
ing textbooks for teaching a foreign language (Table 8.1). On the one hand,
a textbook provides the learner and the teacher with a structure and a sys-
tem and thus gives them consistency and a sense of direction. In addition,
textbooks provide teachers with well-designed resources and activities, they
are also a good source of language and a learning support (Tomlinson, 2021;
Richards, 2001). Textbooks also save precious teaching time and may be es-
pecially useful for novice teachers who are still developing their teaching
strategies and building their bank of materials and resources. However, as
Zohrabi et al. (2014) point out, the textbook may both encourage or discour-
age the learners depending on the quality of the activities and materials in-
cluded. Since textbooks are often written for developing selected teaching
aims, the textbook language may be inauthentic and not really representa-
tive of language use. Furthermore, they generally contain non-problematic
content, acceptable for different contexts and cultures, which means they
often show an idealised view of the world (Richards, 2001). Tomlinson (2021)
also points out that the modern global coursebook which caters for a global
learner fails to meet the needs of particular groups of students and argues
in favour of using more localised materials which take into account the stu-

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