Page 135 - Teaching English at Primary Level: From Theory into the Classroom

Language Learning Materials

dents’ educational, cultural and social context. Finally, the role of the teacher
who relies too much on a course book may be reduced to that of someone
who merely ‘follows the recipes,’ a user of materials and activities developed
by other people.
With theadvent ofcommunicativelanguageteaching,it becameclearthat
languages were best learnt experientially, through language use (Thornbury,
2013). An important question we could ask at this point is to what extent are
FL textbooks able to fulfil this mission. While we may agree that the textbook
provides the teacher and the learners with a structured curriculum and the
basic material, it is also worth considering the warning against giving the
centrality of textbooks in our instruction, expressed by Billows (1961, p. 91, in
Thornbury, 2013):

Thetextbookisone–perhapsthemostimportant–ofmanyvisualaids.
[But] we should never allow it, or any picture or sentence in it, to stand
between our pupils and the concrete world [...] The language must not
be allowed to stay imprisoned between the pages of a book.

Reflecting on the role of textbooks in teaching YLLs, it is worth emphasis-
ing that textbooks are not teachers but rather a collection of resources and
a support to learning and teaching. Several criteria have been proposed for
evaluating FL materials and textbooks (Ghosn, 2013). It is generally agreed
that materials for all levels should be relevant to the learners, take into con-
sideration their experiences and interests, develop the four language skills
gradually and in an integrated manner, and cater for mixed-ability classes.
With respect to teaching YLs, it is above all important to consider their cog-
nitive psychosocial and motor development which should be reflected in dif-
ferent aspects of teaching, such as in the use of the appropriate methodol-
ogy,activities,languagecompetences,butalsointhestructureandthevisual
representation of the material. Table 8.2 (p. 136) presents a checklist designed
especially for evaluating textbooks and other materials for YLs and includes
comments on the efficiency and use of different aspects of teaching when
using the materials. While the checklist presented is especially useful in the
textbook selection stage, it is also a valuable resource for assessing the ma-
terials on a regular basis, after they have been used for some time.

Reflection Point
1. Think about the textbooks and materials you used when you were a pupil
in primary school. Did you find them effective? Discuss the positive aspects
of these materials and the less efficient ones.

135