Using Textbooks Effectively

This volume in the TESOL Classroom Practice Series asks one fundamental question, ""How can teachers teach the students, not the book?"" The response, given within Using Textbooks Effectively, is to move beyond the textbook as a separate entity and view it instead as part of the ESOL curriculum process and as a tool for student learning.

The chapters illustrate textbook use as a dynamic component of the ESOL classroom ecosystem, consisting of the classroom, the world outside the classroom, and the different communities of language practice. The practitioners in this volume link ESOL textbook use to the three corresponding uses of English: for academic purposes, for social interaction, and for pragmatically appropriate expression in different discourse communities in and beyond the classroom.

Using Textbooks Effectively offers ESOL students, teachers, administrators, and specialists insights into the use of textbooks and course materials in specific environments. It also charts strategies for adapting textbooks for different purposes and provides examples of effective classroom applications. Most important, it empowers materials users and designers with the confidence to craft unique learning opportunities.