? Using coursebook material creatively and extending work

[Antiguated]

I'm a new teacher who's started with a full timetable, and realistically I'm basing my lessons on the coursebook, with the odd bit from somewhere else.

I was wondering if you could share some ideas for using textbook material creatively to make it more interesting, and make the practice last longer. Ideally ones that can be implemented without much extra prep.

What I've gleaned or come up with so far:

• Use the answers to questions as ideas only, students come up with different answers
  
  Students write their own questions
  
  Turn questions into a pair speaking activity.

Also any good reading for this sort of thing. I've come across 'Humanising your coursebook' by 'Mario Riavluen on the net, but haven't seen a copy.

Thanks!

[Avocado]

I think the best thing is to think in these terms: how I can I get the most STT out of a given activity / coursebook element?

If it's a conversation, drill, personalize, do it with the book open then closed, and move on to completely free-form RP's. If it's a reading text, it can be transformed into a dialogue for RP's, or S's can write Q's to ask each other about it, or comment on what they thought was surprising/interesting (I learner train new S's to annotate the margins as they read with stars, questions marks, etc. for this purpose).

Actually, there aren't that many kinds of activities in coursebooks. Once you have developed a few things that get the most out of each kind of activity, you'll realize that in actuality (getting metaphysical here) there is no coursebook. There are only resources--recordings, videos, texts, etc. And you're free to use them as you like, as long as you get S's producing TL by the end of the lesson.

[surrealia]

This is a topic I'm really interested in, so I thought I'd add a few comments.

I'd highly recommend you get a copy of Mario Rinvolucri's Humanising Your Coursebook. You can see a preview here:

Humanising Your Coursebook - Book Preview

Marisa Constantinides also has some clever ideas for working with a coursebook here:

Animating Your Coursebook

And, if you're willing to download the Elluminate software than enables you to watch the clip, you should definitely see Ken Wilson's presentation on using a coursebook:

In The End It's Only a Book Webinar

In my own teaching, I try to add activities that make the material in the book a little more interesting, such as getting students to speculate about the lives of the people in the book, injecting humor, allowing students to be creative, and making the material more "local" (more related to the local culture or more closely related to the school and the people in it). In addition, I try to do some activities that preview future units, as well as review previous units.

[surrealia]

More links on this topic. In 2007 and 2009, Mario Rinvolucri wrote some short articles containing some activities similar to those in Humanising Your Coursebook. As he explains in the articles, these activities are intended for use with Green Line, an ESL coursebook, but they can also be adapted for use with other coursebooks.

The Alternative Way - Green Line 1

The Alternative Way - Green Line 2

The Alternative Way - Green Line 3

[Avocado]

I'm a new teacher who's started with a full timetable, and realistically I'm basing my lessons on the coursebook, with the odd bit from somewhere else.

On the other hand, given that you're a new teacher, I'd say there's some merit to "not bothering" supplementing the coursebook, and instead concentrating on using what's there. Think of each section as needing a pre-activity (to activate previous knowledge / generate interest / contextualize); the activity itself; and the post-activity (which ideally maximizes student talk time).

In time, as you get familiar with the book, you'll see if anything needs supplementing, and can build your toolbox up from there.

A final thought: I see a lot of new teachers supplementing with activities that are in no way better than what's in the book--and sometimes worse! Watch out for supplementation for its own sake.

[Antiguated]

I just popped on and saw the new replies. Thanks!

I have a copy of 'humanising your coursebook' and it's really helped. I did about 2/3 of a page in a 3 hour lesson and everyone enjoyed it. I think it's identified a real need for new teachers, as we all know people learn by copying other peoples chops so trying to apply a theoretical model at first is a bit much.

It doesn't seem so strong on speaking stuff, so thanks for your ideas both of you. I will check the 2 presentations soon.

Just going through the coursebook might work out in some situations, but my lot are much stronger on answering questions than they are on listening and producing language, so they just burned through many trees of copies!

It's all working out much better now.

I've also taken to heart the intro to 'humanising' where it says treat the students as adults, ask for their opinions etc. Not that I was the worst, but it's easy to slip into teacher mode, if you're just trying to get through it.

[alexcase]

This article of mine seems to be on topic, so I hope you will forgive the self-plugging

http://edition.tefl.net/ideas/teaching/adapt-textbook/