Hi everybody,
On Wednesday we will be working on using books. In class we will discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of using a book. Based on the disadvantages we could predict some of the problems we might encounter when using a book. Look at the following chart presenting some common difficulties students and teachers might face when using books. Choose a problem and post a solution to overcome that difficulty.
Thanks for sharing!
Weakness
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Teacher/Student Difficulty
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Ways of Overcoming Problem
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The textbook is designed as a the sole source of information.
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Students only see one perspective on a concept or issue.
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Textbook is old or outdated.
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Information shared with students is not current or relevant.
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Textbook questions tend to be low level or fact-based.
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Students assume that learning is simply a collection of facts and figures.
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Textbook doesn't take students' background knowledge into account.
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Teacher does not tailor lessons to the specific attributes and interests of students.
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Reading level of the textbook is too difficult.
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Students cannot read or understand important concepts.
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The textbook has all the answer to all the questions.
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Students tend to see learning as an accumulation of correct answers.
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"The textbook is designed as a the sole source of information."As teachers, we can find a different information about the topic using the technology we have and be prepared for all kinds of questions from the students and also dong that, we can find something more useful and easy to explain than the textbook, you might get information from both sources and mix that up and prepare your class so that will make it dynamic and it'll prevent you from become attached to the text books and only text books, as well let your students get input from all kind of sources around the globe.
ReplyDeleteNowadays it can be way easier than it was before to find new information, different ideas and approaches. The textbooks should be a basic guidance for the teacher but it should not be taken as the main focus of a class, neither should be the teacher. As we read in our past forum, teachers should encourage their students to do their own research. Textbooks would have mistakes, teachers would make mistakes too. A real and healthy learning experience is when the students looks for the teacher's help, can have some back up support with a textbook and also can create questions and look for answers themselves.
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ReplyDeleteThe text is old or outdated: As we talked about in the last forum, educational tecnology is the best way to complement and implement the updated information that is missing from an old textbook, after researching which would be the best technique to do so.
ReplyDeleteI think textbooks should be always updated but as teachers, you should not depend on it, so if the textbook you're using is old, you still should be able to prepare a school and teach to your students. Textbooks can have good activities, good guidance in some cases, but now when we have internet in our hands, with all this free information ready to be used, it would be mediocre that a teacher couldn't find a way to get updated information and prepare a class without a textbook.
DeleteI think Connie is pointing out one of the best things about using technology which is the facility we have these days to complement anything with techonlogy even if it´s old or new, we can do a better research by doing some clicks in our laptops.
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DeleteThat's right guys, Internet gives us the option to get updated information, better examples and deeper explanations of a topic.
DeleteI totally agree with you guys...even though textbook might not be as updated as what we could find online,they still a great tool so if we feel that the textbook is not updated we should focus on what we ca use specificly for a lesson and use internet to complement our class it that case we can keep up dated.
DeleteThanks Manuel, that'exactly what I meant! 👍
DeleteReading level of the textbook is too difficult: The teacher should read first what he is asking his students to read, pick out the words that might be difficult for them to understand, and give them simpler synonyms. At the end he also should explain with his own words what is written in the book.
ReplyDeleteThere are better ways to teach students concepts, you can use or create activities with a different approach, taking in consideration their level of the L2. I agree with what you say Maira, the teacher should do his/her job which is teaching, not rereading a textbook.
DeleteI think maira's point is a great way to anticipate problems, and it shows you have taken planning seriously, and that you have empathy with your students. because doing this you will be able to have them realised of how something they didn't understand at the beggining, is simpler or understandable once the teacher has taken the time to explain and scaffold a reading.
DeleteAnd it is what you're supposed to do anyways, if you will only use the textbooks and not explain to your students, they would easily do that at home online.
DeleteMaira´s point shows how prepared a teacher is. Even more, it would be excellent not only give them simpler synonyms. It would be amazing that the teacher can explain the meaning of a word, using the unknown word, in a situation that the student might be involved. For this purpose, the teacher can tell a short story about the student´s context (sports, music, food, etc.) with the intention that students relate the unknown word, with the situation. I know that sometimes, as teacher, we have too many students and not too much time; so, sometimes, we take the easier way and just translate the word. For this and other reasons, we have to take our profession very serious.
Delete"Textbook questions tend to be low level or fact-based.": Textbooks should be used as a plus, where we can get some activities, some exercises but it shouldn't be the main source of the class because as soon as we use them as our main source, the class won't give space to learn the language, to be able to speak. Part of learning is indeed collection facts and figures but if that's the only focus we will give to it, it will be vain and meaningless. In order to not make the students believe that learning a language is just memorizing the exercises and the grammatical forms from A to Z, teachers should create activities where they involve the textbook as something extra, where they help the students produce and practice all the skills that are needed to be able to master a language. The usual controversy of teaching English as a subject and not an actual language. This can be applied to any topic you might want to teach or learn, be able to understand what you're learning instead of memorizing what we learn is the best way students can actually get some knowledge.
ReplyDeleteAt this point with all the different sources, possibilities and help we have is up to the teacher if he/she wants to teach their students to know or to understand, if he/she wants to prepare them for a test or for their future. Making learning interesting again would be a great way to help the students change their idea of what learning is and cultivate their knowledge.
I agree with you if we stick to the textbook, classes can become monotonous and students would be bored. There are tons of creative ways to do meaningful practice.
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DeleteAnd the students will not learn much either, because the textbooks are very limited. I've always thought that textbooks in general should be a guidance for the teacher.
DeleteLet´s go deeper in something that you said. “The usual controversy of teaching English as a subject and not an actual language”. When you are going to teach English, the first thing that you have to see is the context where you are. Why is this very important? Because you can come with great tools, methodologies and ideas to a school, but in that place (not all the schools, of course) the main or the only source is a textbook. Besides, the academic coordinators are behind you, checking if you are using them or not. Another point to keep in mind: in some schools, as a teacher you only have two or three hours in each week. Now, why am I saying all this? Because as teachers (especially in the context school), we have to think a lot, not only in what other tools or resources you can use for teaching (being the technology one of the most diverse and continuous); also, you have to be very creative in how to handle all that pressure from the coordinators.
DeleteIn other words, if you have a very good structure of your class, using different approaches, mixing the English skills and activities, the textbooks are going to be something extra (like you said). And believe me, when you are a committed teacher (like the person who uses diverse activities and is concerned about the students’ process) the students are going to respect you, they´re going to feel comfortable and they´re going to understand the different sources that exist (not only the textbooks). Moreover, when the coordinators see that you are a prepared teacher and your methodology makes sense (that the students actually learnt) sometimes they adapt to your way of teaching. In a funny way to say, sometimes the schools´ system can´t enter to your class. Good Cami.
I agree with what you say Freyder, as we saw in our class today and I think it was you who said that you had to use the textbook because your coordinator might ask you why you did not use it or it is a requirement for you, even when you have to use it, you still find ways to make it better and more entertaining, to not follow exactly what it says but still using it.
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ReplyDelete"The textbook is designed as a the sole source of information". Using the textbook as the only source of information can be boring. With all the technology we have at our hands nowadays, we should be able to find many ways to teach different things and use them as complements for our class, the use of short videos and games are great examples to accomplish this.
ReplyDeleteThere are many websites designed to captured the students curiosity, thus challenging them to be creative, they will learn that there are other options to learn about a subject besides a book.
I think Diego mentioned a key word which is "boring", if we only use text books, the students might get bored with the L2, or maybe even to languages and the will not learn anything just because of that.
DeleteExactly Diego, it is not very common to see students using books nowadays. When they need information their first resource of it is the internet. So we should definitely use this tool to make our classes more appealing for them.
DeleteDiego has a great point there we should use all the tools (apps, online dictionary, websites) we have to give the best we can for our students... so we cant just focus on using a textbook when we have so many other things we could use. Remember is Audrey writing!!!
DeleteWhen Beth made us offer the teachers, the teacher I saw used the textbook at all but she didn't make it her main source, it was used as a guidance of how the activities should go in order in the class in my opinion. As students we also know that it is easier and faster to look up something online and sometimes they give you better explanations than the textbooks.
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DeleteHello Guys I choose “Textbook doesn't take students' background knowledge into account”. I think that its true, but actually it’s the teacher the one who its responsible to do that with his students check on the background knowledge, he could do that as we saw in class to a diagnosis test (that actually does not need to be a test it could be any kind of activity) to see then what it’s the level of the class and use the information on the textbook to reinforce what the students know or are willing to learn. So this situation it’s perfect for the teacher using other teaching aids to help the student in the process of learning maybe through websites, blogs, videos, and other tools we have avalaible to use in our class.
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DeleteI think depending on the context you are, it applies and it doesn't, for example, in an English course as the ones the Colombo offers, the students should be near or at least in the same level but in the case of a school where English is taught to 30 students in the maximum of 2 hours and it is known that only some students might understand or have an intermediate level, in that case I believe textbooks couldn't cover completely each students' needs.
DeleteAudrey chose a tricky one in my opinion, because of course text books won't ever take into consideration the students' level or previous knowledge since they are not humans that can analyse, make sense nor even evaluate (placement test). Thus it is entirely the teacher's job to figure out how to overcome this issue, according to where he/she is teaching, as Camila said, if we're talking about colombo (laguage learning institute) it is completely different if we teahc at a Monolingual school or a Bilingual school. Things like reinforcement extra classes, recommend having a personalised teacher at home are things that may work.
Delete"Textbook is old or outdated". Many schools have recycled books that have been used for years, in cases like this, we, as teachers, need to come up with new ways and ideas to teach and update this information, as we have seen in the last few weeks, there is an infinite number of resources to bring this into our lessons, whether we use technology or our own imagination.
ReplyDeleteAs teachers, as Willy said yesterday you should be capable of teaching a class without one of those elements or even all of them because you're supposed to know what you're doing obviously.
DeleteHello Everybody,
ReplyDeleteAs we have learnt we know that when it comes to planning and teaching you have to take into account many things, among these our information source is one. In a world like the one we have nowadays with daily technology updates, new better and friendlier equipment and gadgets you might think books are old-fashioned or obsolete. But we know it is not like that at all, schools still use them, institutes the same and even us still consult books. Now, having a book as the sole source of information is just plain crazy, not because the information written in it is wrong, but more because each person learns differently, each student has a different learning style, each student has different likes. Therefore if we see that even though a concept well-written or well-explained in a book didn't cause any impact or any meaningful insights in our students we MUST go over a different source, and not only one but many. Because our goal as teachers is to have happy students that can talk, read and understand English, and information can be shown in so many ways that sticking to the book will be torturous for our students and it will even show lack of creativity from us too.
“The textbook has all the answer to all the questions”. This is a common weakness that too many books have (especially the grammar books). Maybe, the main idea of those kinds of textbooks, is to teach English as a subject and not the way it is: a language. So, one of the solutions to that, is that teacher uses different skills through diverse activities to get to the answer. I mean, the fact that the textbooks have the answer, is not bad. The thing is: What are the methodologies the teacher is using for his/her students get and understand the answer? I know that the results or the answers are important, but when you do a very good academic process, the topic that you are seeing, you are going to remember it easier and you can actually apply it to a context.
ReplyDeleteI believe Willy has taught me some great tools for teaching, one of them being the pyramid, by using this, we can create activities where the students will have to think more in order to solve questions or problems, whatever the case might be, here, we can still use the book as a guide, but look for production in the activities instead of the book
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