Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Big_Bird]

I'm trying to critique a textbook - in particular New Interchange 2 which many of you may have used. So far I've looked at it from 2 perspectives:

1) is it as communicative as it purports
2) how relevant are the situations and contexts to an EFL learner (rather than an ESL learner needing to know the culture of the target language blah blah)

I'm curious about any other criticisms other teachers may have of the book (or other books in general) - or any other ideas they have about it.

Just brainstorming here guys!

[SuperHero]

trying to get us to do your homework for your online M.A.? I did the same course about 2 years ago.

[Big_Bird]

[indytrucks]

You could critique the grammar sections and how they fall in line with various stances on grammar instruction (Krashen on one end, PPP on the other). I personally find the Interchange grammar sections to be largely deductive, practice based in nature, whereas Headway embodied a more 'discovery', inductive C-R approach.

Just my two won.

[some waygug-in]

The dialogue sections always are only half there. There is always another half that the students are just supposed to magically pick up.

It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't always introduce new vocabulary and things in the unprinted parts.


The lack of meaningfull discussion questions was annoying. I mean really, some sections the book only has 2 whole questions and then you are supposed to move on to something new?


Another problem that I've found is that nobody ever buys the friggin workbook. Then they rush through at twice the recommended speed and wonder why no one has learnt anything. Maybe they should just put some of the workbook exercises into the textbook and stop making a separate workbook.

This probably won't help much with your homework, but thems my 2 cents.

[jacl]

I hate that book.

[Seon-bee]

Big Bird, you're behind the times. Perhaps it's that your school is. The latest version is Interchange Third Edition.

One comment about your essay. It's quite a broad topic. Can you be more specific about the question/task. I certainly hope you're not being asked to simply critique a textbook. There's very little professional development in doing that. In fact, I'd say it's a rather subjective activity lacking validity.

I would identify how a specific word or phrase is used in Interchange and compare that to a corpus such as the BNC, then discuss authenticity-- how the word and its collocations are presented in the book vs. the BNC.

I like the book. It's easy to teach if you have no experience teaching. I guess I'd say it's idiot-proof. The layout is visually clean. I found Headway to be to be too packed with pictures and text. My only caution is that, as with all textbooks, Intercahnge is a springboard, not a crutch. You do need the w/b, extra resources, etc. to be successful.

[Hollywoodaction]

"1) is it as communicative as it purports"

No. It's actually a grammar book. If you want something that is communicative (and follows a task-based approach to boot), check any of the books written by David Nunan.

[Big_Bird]

[some waygug-in]

One thing I'd like to add, and this applies to Interchange, Headway and pretty much every EFL textbook I've ever used.

They move way too fast. I really believe they could easily make the books include a lot more reading and vocabulary building activities. They don't need to rush through all the grammatical structures at one new structure per unit.

Why not concentrate on one stucture for 4 or 5 units, and then come up with different and intersting ways of going over it?

[buymybook]

Even though "jacl" don't like it, generally speaking the students do.

You could think and write about why that is the case!

[Hollywoodaction]

[some waygug-in]

What are some titles? I'm sorry if you mentioned it earlier, I must have missed it.

[Hotpants]

I'm not so keen on Interchange or Headway because of the dull topics. My students express real boredom quite quickly with the topics if we stick with the book too much. They want themes like dating, shopping, discussing movie plots as well as the other extreme of being well prepared to take the TOEFL exam. It seems that while English language doesn't change much, the topics of students' interests change faster than it takes for a book to be produced and printed and distributed. It also doesn't account for the changes in electronic communication media. At least you could expect an interactive CDrom to accompany such a high profile text book series for students to develop more self-discovery skills.

The only strength I see with Interchange is an attempt at a theory-grounded multi-disciplinary and graded approach.

As for the workbook, it is no more than just that. It is fairly easy for students to gap fill and complete the sentence, but if they have to do extended independent writing, they struggle without supplementary material. Interchange doesn't really help a student to string ideas together and connect them with natural expressions. Interchange encourages very safe and boring, emotiveless expression.

I also notice that most students who complete a text from the Interchange series within a semester or even one year don't really appear to advance their conversational skills at all, other than that they might gain a bit more confidence to speak out - but that is more of a result of just getting used to being in the classroom. It would seem that students need a much more intensive approach, and a supplement of materials based on other learning theories, even such as old fashioned drilling, or getting real-world materials. There's also the valid point that beginners struggle when being exposed to purely 100% English with no translation into the L1. Interchange doesn't address this.

Don't forget to quote us when you include our ideas in your thesis!

[jacl]