HOW TO IMPROVE A LANGUAGE SCHOOL: #1 REPLACE THE COURSEBOOKS WITH SOMETHING BETTER

HOW TO RUN A LANGUAGE SCHOOL

#1 REPLACE COURSEBOOKS WITH SOMETHING BETTER

What if I told you there was a way to save your language school tens of thousands of pounds a year and have more contented learners and teachers? Interested? Read on. It’s all about coursebooks.

The two main reasons for using coursebooks are not very robust. The first reason they are being used is to sell a “learning product” to students in the form of published materials designed to establish academic “credibility”. It’s a kind of necessary window-dressing. Having coursebooks makes you a real school, right? And the second reason they are being used is because you will have some teachers who can’t teach without a coursebook. Coursebooks are the life support system for those teachers who aren’t experienced enough to freestyle it. These are the two most “compelling” reasons to use coursebooks. They aren’t very strong.

An alternative model to using coursebooks is person-centred and driven by teachers. It’s a model that aims not only at the development of learners but of staff too. This is how it works.

In the language school I would love to work at, we have modular units designed by teachers and learners. Instead of the abstract, wishy-washy unit titles you get in coursebooks (Reflections, Crossings, Intertwinings) you replace them with units entitled “My + something” like My Family, My Friends, My Hometown, My Classmates. Clear, simple and direct. Yes, this is not an entirely original idea but I think it’s an important one because it returns the focus to the learners and their lives.

The units would be the same across all levels so A1 students would be studying the same units as C2 student at the same time. The result is that everybody in the school is collectively focused on the same thing instead of the usual fragmentation. If the school were to ask “What are we doing this week?” everyone would know. It’s “My Family” week.

The possibilities would be endless. You could have project work in which students actually produced tangible work about something. You could have competitions about weekly topics that lower level students could win in competition with higher level students. You could have cross-class interviewing in which students teamed up with students from higher levels and collaborated on project work. Podcasts, newsletters, blogs. This is everything we don’t usually have when we just use coursebooks.

Of course, getting such a project up and running is an enormous and totally unfeasible enterprise in the world of EFL. Can you imagine a school that trusts its staff enough to do something like this? A central problem is that when you have directors on salaries of £35,000+ a year they aren’t exactly motivated to try out new things. They have no incentive to be radical or bold. They are quite comfortable where they are using coursebooks. But that fails just about everyone.

What do you think? Wouldn’t most of us prefer to work in a school like this?