Teach English in Dachen Zhen - Taizhou Shi

This unit has focused on the course book and class materials in teaching. Start from analyzing different course materials that a teacher can apply according to student’s level. Then this unit moves on to discuss the pros and cons of textbook/course book, also offered a clear demonstration on critically using course book. The criteria on analyzing a course book and further suggestions on how to adjust it based on class needs, even personalize class materials for students when the situation requires, could bring many new insights for teachers. In general course book is quite practical and easy to apply, and in many ways, they have saved a lot of teacher’s time. Having a course book usually is the fundamental idea whenever we want to learn something new, we need a basic guideline, but does it work well? A lot students don’t place any interest on course book, and tend to leave a negative impression towards it. Just retrace back to my own learning and teaching experiences, I think I can echo with those complaints on course book. Plus, I do believe learning is rather personal, and again for individual class/one on one classes, the teacher might be able to totally get rid of course book, as long as the student stays motivated, interested, and prefers proceeding this way; But for big class, it is almost impossible to make that gesture. And in many cases, teaching totally depends on course work with the ultimate goal of passing exams is quite common in many places, at least based on my observation, which I think is totally unacceptable. So there still is a need to stimulate a proper conjunction between course book and extra materials in order to motivate students.