So What Book Are You Using? How to Select (or Not Select) a Great ESL Textbook.

Often when in the teacher’s room, another teacher will ask me, “So what book are you using?” I used to smile at this: “What book are you using?” not “Who are your students?” or “What level of class do you have this semester?” It seemed a pretty shallow question.

However, through experience, I no longer view it this way: what book a teacher uses—or doesn’t use—reveals a lot about her teaching style and curriculum.

For example, a teacher who uses Azar’s grammar series, with its clear charts and explanations of grammar points, probably takes a rather traditional, structured approach to grammar. The teacher’s colleague who uses Molinsky and Bliss’s “Side by Side” series probably takes an audiolingual approach to language instruction, with a focus on oral language and repetition of patterned drills. If I’m not familiar with the textbook the teacher names, I can find out about from him, perhaps look over a copy if he has one, and I might decide to try it next semester for my own class. Traditionally, in fact, before the electronic revolution, the textbook was considered the cornerstone of a class, much of the curriculum and instruction based on it.

So how do you go about choosing an excellent textbook for your class? There is a process that will ensure picking out a strong, if not ideal, textbook.

How to Select (or Not Select) a Great ESL Textbook

ü  Get to Know Your Students

ü  Get to Know Publishers and Their Websites and Representatives

ü  Select Options

WRITTEN BY Stacia Levy.

Dr. Stacia Levy teaches writing and reading skills at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California to both native and nonnative speakers of English. 

She also has taught academic and creative writing at the University of California, Davis. However, she began her teaching career twenty years ago as an instructor ESL in adult education programs and still primarily defines herself as an ESL teacher. 

Publishing credits include two academic works based on her dissertation, several short stories, and a novel, California Gothic, a story of romantic suspense.

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