Teaching without a coursebook

1 de 4

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/print/451
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/teaching-one-one

Published on TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC (http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk)

Home > Think > Articles > Teaching without a coursebook

Teaching without a coursebook

By TE Editor
Created 30 Mar 2011 - 08:37

TeachingEnglish
Teaching without a coursebook
Submitted by TE Editor on 30 March, 2011 - 08:37
Copyright iStockphoto | iStock_000011534975XSmall | TeachingEnglish
Whether you're starting with a new class or just changing direction a little the decision of
how to structure a course without a coursebook can sometimes be difficult for a new or even
experienced teacher.
What's wrong with using a coursebook?
A topic-based syllabus
Structuring the course
Needs analysis
Set short-term objectives
Remedial grammar
Error correction
Variety
Conclusion

What's wrong with using a coursebook?

Well, in many cases, nothing! With the constant updating of text books to include new and
relevant topics, ideas and methodology, teachers have a great set of resources at their
fingertips. Students however may not see it that way. Perhaps they have had past
experiences with a "bad" textbook, in other words, following a book which is not well chosen
in terms of their age, interests and needs. Maybe they are lacking a little variety in their
classes or perhaps you or they just want a break or a change from routine.
A topic-based syllabus
What might sound like fun for the students can seem a bit daunting for the teacher. By
taking away the course book we are taking away our safety net, our tried and tested syllabus
written by someone who apparently knew what they were doing!
Using a topic-based syllabus as a framework, however, provides a natural stimulus for
language learning in a realistic context. By starting with a topic of interest and then
discussing or explaining an issue or opinion, students will find out what they want to say and
whether they can say it or not. This then, provides further objectives, whether they be
grammatical, lexical or pronunciation based, on which to build the course.
Structuring the course
08/06/2011 22:38

Teaching without a coursebook

2 de 4

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/print/451

What might at first sight seem like quite an unstructured course can in fact be deceptively
well organised. Here are five steps to follow to ensure that both students and teacher feel
that the course is properly designed:
Needs analysis
The key to beginning a successful topic-based course is to clearly establish the students'
interests and motivations. As part of your lesson get the students to talk about themselves
and each other and find out what they enjoy, what they don't like, whether they know what's
going on in the news at the moment and so on.
Keep a note of what comes up as the list of potential topics can be long and every
student will be different.
Ultimately, those topics which will be successful are those which spark off an
agreement or disagreement with someone else in the class as well as those the
students seem well-informed about.
The students will take over the conversation and lead it where they want it to go.
Whether or not you get a long list from students, you can always use course books "behind
the scenes" to help you. Take a look at the contents page of a course book for topic ideas
and suggest them to students or take one of the student's ideas and back it up with more
material from the book. Students will never know their ideas originally came from a book!
Set short-term objectives
The list resulting from the needs analysis may be long with a variety of topics and areas of
interest. Rather than trying to include everything, plan to focus on three or four over a certain
time frame, either a term or particular number of hours depending on the frequency of the
classes. Decide with the students what their objectives for the coming course will be, for
example: to develop their ability to discuss certain topics with more confidence, fluency and
awareness of relevant language. Endeavour to ensure that topics cover several lessons to
give an idea of continuation. Even better if you can find a link between topics so the students
will have some thread to follow over the course.
Remedial grammar
While topics and current affairs tend to lend themselves to a great deal of discussion it is
important that the students don't feel that grammar or language input has been abandoned
altogether! Although they may not want to follow a structural syllabus per se, there will be
structural errors which repeatedly occur both in needs analysis and during the course and
these will form the underlying framework for language input.
This of course requires teachers to be more flexible and reactive to problems which are
arising. Again, course books can be used as a base and exercises selected according to the
needs of the students. It is still okay for the teacher to say "We'll discuss this in detail next
lesson!" if something comes up that wasn't prepared.
Error correction
When focusing mainly on conversation in class it is very tempting to encourage fluency at
the expense of accuracy, especially at high levels.
Discuss this issue with the students encouraging them to think about when they want
to be corrected. Many are keen to be corrected on the spot, some prefer correction
slots throughout the class or at the end.

08/06/2011 22:38

Teaching without a coursebook

3 de 4

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/print/451

Trying several different approaches will allow both teacher and student to find which
works best for them.
Keeping a note of errors and giving them back to the students the following lesson to
correct really makes them think back and pay attention to the mistakes they are
making.
Variety
The wider the variety of sources and resources you and your students can find, the better.
Let's take an example:
Students have all agreed they are interested in cinema. As a starting point find out
which films particularly they like and ask them to explain the story and why they like
them.
The Internet, magazines and newspapers can be used to research films and language
of film reviews can be studied.
Video or DVD can be used to watch all or some of the films and a variety of work can
be done on this involving discussion, pronunciation, accents, role plays, descriptions,
predictions, translations. Don't forget it is most important to grade the task not the text
so authentic materials can be used with low level classes.
Coursebook material can be used to add to this in terms of listening and reading
material at any level.
A variety of topics could follow on from this starting point of cinema. Fame and fortune,
privacy, the media, entertainment, fashion are all possibilities that could be exploited.
Indeed the topics contained in some of the films may even provide links to a wider
variety of discussions and areas of interest.
Conclusion
Teaching without a coursebook won't please everyone all of the time and can create a lot of
extra work, but in terms of your own teacher development and as a way of keeping your
classes fresh and interesting for your students, I would definitely recommend giving it a try
from time to time.
If you have any suggestions or tips for adapting or getting away from coursebooks you would
like to share on this site, contact us.
Jennifer Goodman, Oxford House College, Barcelona

Tag Articles

Email

Share

resources

Articles resources
Copyright | Privacy | Accessibility | Sitemap | Contact us | Help | About us
British Council, 10 Spring Gardens, London SW1A 2BN, UK
BBC World Service, Bush House, Strand, London WC2B 4PH, UK

08/06/2011 22:38

Teaching without a coursebook

4 de 4

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/print/451

Source URL: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/teaching-without-a-coursebook

08/06/2011 22:38