Analyzing materials (coursebooks, lesson plans and activities for teaching)

ANALYZING MATERIALS (COURSEBOOKS, LESSON PLANS AND ACTIVITIES FOR TEACHING)

Concerning question number one, about the importance of coursebooks for them as teachers, all the participants, in a very analogous way, regarded them as an important resource.

Two different teachers (T2 and T4) used the noun phrase very important to evaluate the relevance of a coursebook for them. The use of the noun guideline (T1), the noun phrase best guide for a teacher (T9) and the verb guides (T2), along with the expressions gives me a line of work (T3), outlines the course (T5) and suggests the order of the subject (T8), may indicate the use of the coursebook as a means to help them to keep on track and keep focused on the course plan throughout the term.
The next series of statements mentioned by the teachers: almost impossible to prepare or select a good material for each class and (…) already prepared (T4); facilitates a teacher’s work (T5); makes the teacher’s work easier (T5) and no teacher (…) has time to prepare so much material (T7) are very meaningful to this piece of work. All the sentences above along with the key-words apoio (T6) and useful (T8 and T9) might signal the crucial need for a teaching resource that saves time for teachers who would otherwise spend extra and non-paid time to prepare their own materials. Added to this were other participants’ choice of words with the verb provide, for example, mentioned by T7 and T8, and also the adjective useful cited by T8 and T9. Two references to the importance of a credible publishing house as institutions that validate and make a coursebook a reliable material, were made by T7 ( extensive research behind it) and T9 (well-known press), which might indicate the co-responsibility they expect from the writers and editors in such a time-consuming job. These statements might signify that besides the convenience of having readily available material, teachers also expect these resources to be produced by experts.