Around April, May, publishing houses send to schools free samples of their manuals for the teachers to analyse . Sometimes we have more than 5 books for the same form to analyse. Then, we have to fill in a grid (sent by the ministry) to see which book is better, bearing in mind the orientations of the ministry of education.

What we have then, is a whole country, having completely different manuals for the same form, which is OK for everybody. Sometimes, when we get at the end of the school year, we think that our choice should have been different. But nothing can be done now, because we have to have the same book, at least during four years, in the same form.

As for private schools I think that who chooses the manual is the head of department, I really don �t know.

Have a nice week!

Leonor

- usefulness (I don �t like books with tons of practice material which is not really useful)

- appearance (in a private school, parents really want to pay for the books that looks good, modern, contemporary and is good quality)

- material organisation (clearly laid out topics, clear lesson structure, clear goals, themes and grammar topics)

- good audio backup (some courses look fine, but their audio is horrible)

- a simple and effective teachers � book (easy to follow, with backup tests and additional material which allows creativity)

- suitable for the knowledge level and age of the sts

- usu, if a manual/coursebook complicates the introduction and lesson plans too much, it �s not effective - if you know sth well, you know how to explain it simply

- important - when we find sth good, we don �t go for innovations too often - we �re not stuck on old material, but if a material is good, why change it just to get nice new covers

 

I also agree with manonski about using my own material - sometimes the book is just an additional burden. I also love working �without a net �, but I like to have books for the sake of the parents and the sts - it provides a safety net and a reference for them, and I know that �s important for them. But I use the book as a guideline, not as a cage. It �s supposed to help teachers, not limit their work.

If we can �t prepare a good lesson without a book (esp a teachers � book), then we are not teachers, but still just students.

 

my opinion is a bit different. In Spain we aren �t "obliged" to use a book. It is the teachers or the school, maximum, the ones that decide what to use. We can contact the publishing houses who usually send a book or even a sales representative with the books, so that we can get familiar with them and we can choose it as our course book.

I would say most of us use a book, and please DO contradict me if I am wrong. For me, it is more comfortable, and so is it for students. You know, working with B/W photocopies all the time makes things a bit boring, at least to me. Furthermore, if students have a book, in a way they feel they know where they are, they have something solid to look at and say: I �ve done this, but I haven �t done that yet.

Obviuosly, having a book does not mean you have to follow all the units, and all the exercises religiously. In my case, the perfect option is a thin book, that will cover all the essential grammar topics and then your own material to cover extra grammar, vocabulary, etc that you want to teach. And since we don �t have access in every classroom to the necessary equipment to do many things online, I cannot use all the great websites, for example to practise listening. So, again, a book is of great help here.

And after all, usually behind a book there is a group of people who have spent a lot of the time thinking about how things should be done. So why not profit from this work?