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kiwiduncan
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Location: New Zealand
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 Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:10 pm Post subject: Feelings about crappy and inappropriate textbooks |
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I'm teaching kids classes at my university during the vacation. The textbooks that have been chosen (with very little consultation with the teachers) and foisted upon us are totally crap and innappropriate for the students. I'm convinced they are a waste of time, money and resources but my boss insists on using them. Don't managers ever realise that using dull, boring and overly academic books in a class is counter-productive?
Thoughts please. |
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nomad-ish
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
Location: On the bottom of the food chain
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 10:13 pm Post subject: Re: Feelings about crappy and inappropriate textbooks |
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| kiwiduncan wrote: |
I'm teaching kids classes at my university during the vacation. The textbooks that have been chosen (with very little consultation with the teachers) and foisted upon us are totally crap and innappropriate for the students. I'm convinced they are a waste of time, money and resources but my boss insists on using them. Don't managers ever realise that using dull, boring and overly academic books in a class is counter-productive?
Thoughts please. |
just be happy that they expect you to teach. i'm told to just play games all week long. damn, it's a looong week
i would suggest finding supplementary materials (that are a little easier) for the kids. if your boss throws a fit and/or wants you to cover the entire book front to back, tell him your professional opinion and if he still doesn't change his mind, i would just teach it. |
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kiwiduncan
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:51 am Post subject: Re: Feelings about crappy and inappropriate textbooks |
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| nomad-ish wrote: |
just be happy that they expect you to teach. i'm told to just play games all week long. damn, it's a looong week
i would suggest finding supplementary materials (that are a little easier) for the kids. if your boss throws a fit and/or wants you to cover the entire book front to back, tell him your professional opinion and if he still doesn't change his mind, i would just teach it. |
Yeah playing games all the time sucks. I'm a firm believer that, given the right attitude and materials, it's possible get useful, real language out even the lowest level speakers.
I've got loads of good materials built up over years of teaching, and I like stuff that gets the kids being creative with just a few basic grammar points and lots of cool pictures and images to work with. Simple stuff like giving them bunches of photos (all praise google image search) and getting them describing what they can see ("she has gin but she doesn't have tonic", "the lion is eating a baby zebra" for example)
Most of the kids in my writing class have written self introductions along the lines of "My hobby is read a book and I have four families", yet the assigned textbook is Guidelines to Clear Academic Writing or some shit. The director, who knows the book is a pile of poo and initially agreed to let me produce and use my own stuff (only to spring the book back on me on the first day of class) has said "just use the good bits". But it's like being asked to peel potatoes with a microwave oven. |
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normalcyispasse
Joined: 27 Oct 2006
Location: Yeosu until the end of February WOOOOOOOO
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| Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 4:53 am Post subject: |
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| Well, maybe do you like sing a song? |
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