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This house believes that published course materials don’t reflect the lives or needs of learners

Young woman public speakingAhead of the ELT Journal debate at IATEFL Liverpool, Graham Hall, editor of ELT Journal, presents his arguments for and against the need for published course materials.

Teaching and learning materials of one form or another are almost, but not quite, universal in ELT classrooms. And, obviously, the materials available to teachers and learners vary widely according to context; teachers and learners may also use similar materials in different ways depending on, for example, their beliefs, knowledge and skills, and wider social and institutional expectations.

But over time, changing ideas about language learning combined with developments in technology lead to changes in ELT materials. ‘Older’ materials are often replaced by newer resources which, in turn, eventually become outdated or unfashionable. So it can help us as teachers to think through some of the debates surrounding teaching and learning materials to make up our own minds about their strengths and weaknesses.

By way of example, let’s look at some of the debates surrounding textbooks (and here I mean textbooks generally, rather than evaluating a particular book or series). Textbooks are the main source of teaching ideas and materials for many teachers around the world; indeed, it’s almost impossible to imagine ELT without textbooks. But whether they are a help or hindrance to teaching and learning is often a source of heated discussion.

Well-designed textbooks have a number obvious benefits for teachers and learners. They provide language input for learners; they can provide interesting and motivating material, organised in an appealing and logical manner; and they provide a written record of what has been studied, allowing for revision and continued study beyond the classroom. Textbooks also reduce the amount of time teachers’ require for preparation. So, one way of thinking about textbooks is that professional materials writers and teachers have different areas of expertise which complement each other. Using well-presented, professionally published textbooks frees teachers to deal with the day-to-day business of actually teaching.

But there are a number of criticisms of textbooks. Perhaps they create a ‘dependency culture’ in which teachers avoid responsibility and just do ‘what they are told’ by the textbook writers. As a result (so the argument goes), teachers may become ‘de-skilled’, losing their ability to think critically and work independently in the classroom. Textbooks are also said to fail to cater for individual needs, lead to material- rather than person-centred classes, and constrain creativity in the classroom.

However, criticisms of textbooks extend beyond these classroom-focused concerns. As well as being an teaching resource, textbooks are commercial products, which, it is claimed, are innately conservative in order to sell as widely as possible. This caution might be methodological, or it might be reflected in the cultural images that textbooks present. Most textbooks, for example, continue to focus on native-speaker lives, lifestyles and language varieties, and images of successful L2 learners are absent from many ELT materials; likewise, images of poverty, disability and many other aspects of ‘real life’ are difficult to find in many textbooks. Thus, it is argued, textbooks are not ‘neutral’, but reflect a particular view of social order and particular sets of values.

Of course, it is would unfair to suggest that textbooks writers and publishers are not aware of, or concerned about, these issues; yet producing a marketable product which does not ignore global and local realities and contexts is a difficult challenge.

These issues will be discussed and debated in more detail in the ELT Journal debate, held at the IATEFL Conference in Liverpool on Thursday 11th April (17:05-18:20 UK time). There, Scott Thornbury will propose the motion ‘This house believes that published course materials don’t reflect the lives or needs of learners’; Catherine Walter will oppose the motion. For more information about the conference, and to access the debate via Liverpool online, go to http://www.iatefl.org/.

Graham Hall is editor of ELT Journal and works at Northumbria University in the UK, where he teaches on Northumbria’s MA in Applied Linguistics for TESOL and MA TESOL programmes.


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Writing for an academic Journal

JournalsDo you want to write an article for an academic journal? Don’t know how to get started? Graham Hall, editor of ELT Journal, offers some advice.

What’s your view of ‘theory’ and ‘research’ in English language teaching? Have you ever heard another teacher say ‘that’s fine in theory, but it’s just not relevant to me’, or even ‘I’m too busy actually teaching to look at research’ (maybe you think this yourself)? Well, in some ways, your colleagues might have a point – teachers are busy and research can seem very remote from what happens in our classrooms.

But, in the end, everything we do as teachers is informed by some kind of theory – whether the ideas of researchers in our field investigating how languages might be learned, or the methodological approaches embedded in our textbooks, or our own personal theories about what constitutes a ‘good’ classroom activity, or why learners respond to certain learning tasks but not others.

And many teachers, at some point in their career, want to move beyond reflecting upon their own professional practice and ‘just’ reading the insights of others, to share their own informed insights about teaching and learning with the wider profession. One way of doing this to write for an academic journal. But how might you get started?

First, make sure you have something interesting to say! There are two elements to this, of course – that what you write about is interesting to you, and that it is also interesting to potential readers (sorry for stating the obvious). So, as you prepare and write your article, have a specific journal in mind, and study articles in that journal closely. What kind of topics are covered in the journal, what is the typical style of articles in the journal, how are authors’ own ideas balanced with background literature, what is the balance of theory/research and practice and so on? Additionally, all journals have ‘Author guidelines’ or ‘Instructions to authors’ which summarise the answers to many of these questions (usually on their websites) – try to get hold of them.

Writing an article isn’t always very straightforward. Finding the words to express yourself clearly and concisely whilst covering everything that you need to say within the word limit is often a challenge. And, the first time a teacher tries to write for an academic journal, writing in what is often a new style of language, and writing about both theory/research and practice can be a challenge – certainly, this was the case when I was preparing the first article I was fortunate enough to have published. So, don’t give up – I suspect that everyone who has published an academic journal article has struggled at some point!

Having prepared an article which you think is suitable for a particular journal, give it a final check through. Does it meet the criteria the journal lists for publication, both in terms of focus and interest, but also in terms of, for example, the word limit and language accuracy? If so, submit it.

What usually happens next is as follows. Authors receive an acknowledgement that the journal has received their paper. Editors then take an immediate decision about articles – should they be rejected immediately or should they be sent for ‘peer review’? When papers are rejected immediately, it is often because writers have not thought clearly enough about the way in which their article meets the aims and objectives of a journal, or have ignored ‘the basics’ such writing an article of an appropriate length.

Peer review means just that – articles are sent to members of an editorial panel who work in the same field and have experience of both writing for publication, usually in that journal, and reading and reflecting on journal articles. Papers are read by two reviewers, and are anonymized throughout this process – reviewers do not know who the authors of a paper are.

As they read, peer reviewers look for the following: that articles are relevant and interesting to the journal readership, and are clearly and coherently written with no flaws in their internal logic. In the case of ELT Journal, reviewers specifically look for an appropriate balance between theory and practice, and that practice relates to theoretical principles whilst theoretical concepts are clarified by reference to their practical applications. Accounts of specific contexts should have clear implications for other contexts whilst there also needs to be an awareness of recent / other work in the field. Most journals have similar criteria, dependent on their aims and readership.

The reviews are returned to the editor who then considers the feedback and prepares a follow-up response to the original author. This usually takes the form of one of four possible decisions – a paper might be Rejected; substantial Revisions might be requested prior to resubmission and further peer review; the paper might be Conditional Accepted, dependent on a few minor changes being made by the author; or the decision may be a straightforward Acceptance. And clearly, this all takes a little time.

So, what’s in it for you – why try to publish in an academic journal, especially if there’s a possibility that your article may be rejected after so much hard work? Well, it is a great form of professional development. Authors focus on one key issue which is important to them and learn even more about it through the process of researching and writing an article; first time authors also learn a new set of skills – researching and writing for publication. If successful, your findings and perspectives become known to the wider ELT profession which develops as a consequence. You may be able to develop your paper into a talk which you can present at a conference. Readers may get in touch to find out more about your ideas.

So, is writing for an academic journal worth the hard work required? Definitely, but you will have a huge sense of satisfaction when you see your article in print.