To Use a Textbook or Not to Use a Textbook: Is That the Question?

By Suzanne Irujo ELL Outlook™ Contributing Writer

At one of the first professional development workshops I attended after becoming a bilingual/ESL teacher, the presenter made a comment about teaching without having a textbook and was immediately challenged by a teacher who insisted that you had to have a textbook to teach effectively. The presenter's response was that a good teacher can teach with nothing more than a stick to write with in the dirt. I tended to agree with him, because I had few usable textbooks (or much of anything else) in my classroom, and I thought I was doing a pretty good job of teaching.

But was I? I was implementing no sequential curriculum, trying to achieve no standards, and for the most part following a "do-whatever-works" approach. A few years later, when the district supplied me with basal reading and math texts, I was happy to have them. I think my teaching improved; but was that a result of the textbooks themselves, my increasing experience, or the fact that I now had more time to prepare lessons since I didn't have to invent everything myself?

Why Is There a Question?

There is no doubt that textbooks are necessary. They provide us with guidance on what to teach and how to teach it, save us the time it would take to invent all those activities and materials ourselves, and give inexperienced teachers ideas for ways to teach that they might not be able to come up with themselves.

But when teachers use a textbook as their sole guide for what to teach, the textbook becomes the curriculum; when they use it as their sole guide for preparing lessons, it becomes the lesson plan; and when they use it as their sole guide for ideas about how to teach, it becomes professional development. Is this a good idea?

Before we look at some of the issues brought up by the question of whether or not to use a textbook, let me clarify that I'm talking about the basal textbooks that can become a complete curriculum for a particular subject, not the supplementary textbooks that are meant to be used in conjunction with other materials. A basal textbook might be the reader used to teach beginning reading in a mainstream first-grade classroom, the textbook used in a high school trigonometry class, or anything in between-or a textbook from a series designed to teach English language development (ELD).

Textbook as Curriculum

The argument that we need textbooks to tell us what to teach is a strong one. Few teachers have the time or the expertise needed to design their own curricula and align them with national and state standards. By following a textbook, they know that they are teaching what they need to teach and that their students will have at least some exposure to most of the content included in their state and district standards.

BUT:

By trying to cover all of the content contained in the national standards for each subject, and in the standards of most of the larger states as well, textbooks include much more content than most students can learn in a year. This means that teachers have to carefully plan out their instruction for the whole year, making choices about what is most important to cover. Or, as most teachers do, they can simply begin at the beginning of the textbook and continue as far as they can, with the topics remaining at the end of the school year left untaught.

Another problem with trying to cover all the content needed to achieve all of those standards is that the curriculum ends up with great breadth, but individual topics have very little depth. Learning a smattering of information about a great many different topics makes it difficult for students to understand the connections among the topics of a discipline. In the end, after most of the information on the standards-based tests has been forgotten, it will be a student's understanding of the basic structure that makes a difference. The facts about individual topics within the discipline are always available (and ever easier to access given the explosion of information on the Internet).

Textbook as Lesson Plan

Why should individual teachers spend their very limited planning time "reinventing the wheel" when publishers have already developed appropriate instructional sequences, lesson designs, and activities for each subject? This is an especially valid question for teachers of ELLs, who often have minimal training for teaching ELD. And no matter what their training or experience, it's true that by using what's available in the basal textbooks and their teachers' guides, teachers can save a great deal of time that would otherwise be spent on planning and preparing their own materials.

BUT:

Basal textbooks are designed so that the format of all lessons is the same. This uniformity makes textbooks easier to write and easier to teach from, but it can also lead to boredom as the same sequence of activities is followed day after day.

This also means that the design of the textbook is "one size fits all." Although teachers' guides pay lip service to differentiated instruction through their "tips" for special needs students, gifted and talented students, and English language learners, the reality is that instruction is basically the same for all students, and that the materials are designed to appeal to the same "generic" student interests. Teachers of ELLs know that a single set of materials cannot meet all the needs and interests of all their students.

Textbook as Professional Development

Textbooks are presumably written by experts who understand the structure of the discipline and know how to organize it so it makes the most sense pedagogically. They must know how to create an instructional design for daily lessons so students will learn effectively. And they have to be creative enough to provide activities that will engage students and make them want to learn. By using materials created by people with expertise in teaching a particular subject, teachers can learn the best ways to teach it and get ideas for creative activities.

BUT:

Are the people who write the textbooks really experts? The organization of the content and the creation of the instructional design are usually done by senior editors at publishing companies, working with a team of experts who are identified as "authors" of the textbooks. But the actual writing of the lessons usually is done by professional writers. These writers are often former teachers who are very good at coming up with creative ideas, but would rather write about them than teach them. They may know less about how to teach the subject than most teachers do, but they have chosen to be writers instead of teachers.

And in the end, no matter the expertise of the editors, authors, consultants, or writers who create the textbooks, the only person who really knows how a particular student will best learn a particular skill or piece of knowledge is that student's teacher. So any teacher using any textbook will have to adapt it for individual students.

What Is the Question?

It should be obvious by now that I've been asking the wrong question. It's not a matter of whether to use a text, it's a question of how to use it. Whether you work in a system where the use of a particular textbook is mandated, are in your first year of teaching and would be lost without a textbook, or are an experienced teacher wanting to take the best advantage of your limited planning time, you should look at textbooks as tools to help you teach better. So the question becomes, "How can textbooks be used most effectively?"

Is There an Answer?

About a year ago, there was an exchange on the TESLK-12¹ electronic discussion group that was sparked by a question similar to mine: A teacher asked if she should use a single textbook to teach ESL or if it was better to teach from several different materials at the same time. The answers, all from practicing teachers, provide suggestions for teachers looking for guidance in how to use textbooks.

Only one respondent insisted that teachers should not teach straight out of a single textbook, saying that it was better to get students using "real English" as soon as possible. Among the others, there was a variety of responses:

Why Textbooks are Useful

• Texts are written by experienced teachers and writers, and many of them are quite good.
• Texts provide a "big picture" of the whole curriculum and guidelines for what to do.
• It is very easy to jump around, with no clear goal, when you use a variety of materials with no single book as a reference.

When Textbooks Should be Used

• Textbooks are probably necessary for new teachers, although they should still be supplemented; using a textbook as a guideline lightens new teachers' loads and prevents them from becoming overwhelmed.
• Textbooks are necessary when a teacher has to plan for five different classes a day.

How to Use Textbooks

• Use the text as an "anchor," but supplement it occasionally.
• It the text doesn't address the variety of needs that are present in the classroom, it will need to be supplemented.
• If a text used by young children doesn't include a variety of activities, it will need to be supplemented, since young children require frequent changes of activities.
• Use the same texts that mainstream students use, but adapt them to the needs of your students; having the same books as their native-English-speaking peers helps ELLs build confidence.

Finally, one respondent mentioned that it might be necessary to redefine "textbook," since many materials now are sets of components, including big books, readers, tapes, CDs, flashcards, manipulatives, posters, dictionaries, reference books, and other materials, with no student "textbook" at all. Materials such as these can address a variety of student needs and learning styles, which at least partially eliminates the need for supplementing.

So if you are a teacher who thinks you should be creating all your own lesson plans from a variety of materials, but you just don't have time to do so and that makes you feel guilty, consider using a basal text with supplementation and adaptation (see Ragan, 2006 for suggestions on adapting texts for ELLs).

And if you are a teacher who is using a single textbook as curriculum, lesson plan, and professional development, consider looking for ways to adapt and supplement it. Doing so will obviously help you better meet your students' needs. You will also find that through your efforts to improve on the textbook, you will come to better understand how a curriculum implements a specific set of standards, how a lesson plan implements part of a curriculum, and how teachers learn to plan creative and effective activities.

References

Ragan, A. (2006). Using adapted texts in ELL classrooms. The ELL Outlook 5(2), March/April

End Note

¹ To subscribe to the electronic discussion group TESLK-12, send a message to

If you have any comments about this article or questions for for the author, please send them to: alex@coursecrafters.com.