I have had several conversations with colleagues at my new school concerning textbooks for English classes. The school has purchased the New Opportunities series as well as the Hodder International English series, which we are "encouraged" to use as the driving force of our planning. The books are horribly bland and leave absolutely no room for creative and purposeful teaching.
I've been teaching English for the 13 years, the last 10 within the IB, and have never used a textbook other than perhaps an anthology of short stories here and there. Am I crazy to think that my school is using archaic teaching practices by relying on textbooks for language and literature instruction? I find it bizarre to have my admin team champion these texts. They really are quite terrible.
Any thoughts?
Textbooks, really?
I think admin tends to be taken in by glossy presentations, lots of jargon and buzz words (esp. "research-based" and "best practices" these days), and price. It's too bad they don't include the teachers who will be using the texts in the decision making process.
The literature book for ninth grade at my school is over 20 years old. The stories are quite good, but I write my own lessons and pretty much ignore the teacher's "guide." I consider myself a very flexible and creative teacher and enjoy writing curric. I can make a show of using our very expensive new grammar books (that the students have to purchase), but that doesn't drive my curric. So that's what I would recommend--write in your lesson plans "Unit 12, blahblahblah" and then just use that topic as the springboard for your lesson.
The literature book for ninth grade at my school is over 20 years old. The stories are quite good, but I write my own lessons and pretty much ignore the teacher's "guide." I consider myself a very flexible and creative teacher and enjoy writing curric. I can make a show of using our very expensive new grammar books (that the students have to purchase), but that doesn't drive my curric. So that's what I would recommend--write in your lesson plans "Unit 12, blahblahblah" and then just use that topic as the springboard for your lesson.