Matching Learning Objectives and Textbook Content

What are we to do when we design a course, but there is no published curriculum that matches the objectives? This is a problem that we are currently facing. Our committee has selected what it deems to be the best curriculum for one of our core courses. It is pedagogically sound, teacher friendly, and well supplemented for both teacher and student.

However, our program has been charged with selecting courses (with their descriptions and learning objectives) from a preexisting, approved list. The committee did its best to match the pre-existing courses with agreed-upon levels and textbooks. Nevertheless, there is no real match. As a consequence, it is particularly important to remember what some in the committee have tried to impress upon me, namely that “the course is not the book.” Since we have not actually designed the course (description & objectives), what does it actually consist of?

Where fortune smiles, the learning objectives overlap with the book content, and we can easily provide additional material as expansion activities. However, where the learning objectives and the book do not overlap, it is incumbent upon the teachers to find or design supplementary material for the students. To the extent that this is done, it generally becomes necessary to skip parts of the book in order to allow for time for the additional material. Students, who do not understand the difference between the course book and the course, are confused that parts of the book are skipped. The teacher is put into a very difficult position.

For me, this practice also raises another, ethical, question. I have been repeatedly told that the course must contain with is in the pre-set, official course description. However, we are free to add as much as we with (i.e., the textbook!). In practical terms, I would say that 90% or more material taught consists of the course book (the “added material”), making a mockery of the course description and objectives.

The solution? First, designing a course around the actual needs of our students in such a way that it easily meshes with the best published curricula we can find. Second, producing supplementary material to augment the books and allow them to meet the course objectives.

Textbook and Contact Hours Issues

One of the problems I have noticed is that the number of hours in a given course may not match the recommended hours of a particular textbook. This may be a problem confined to courses taught at a college because course length is usually set by custom, so that it fits in with the scheduling of other classes. However, the result is that the hours recommended for using a particular text may not match the contact hours of a given ESL course.

For example, at our college, the core ESL classes are designed to match the contact hours of credit classes: 48. At my college we have had, and I inherited, a practice of assigning one book per course. For example, a level 2 book and workbook would be used in the (48-hour) Fall term, regardless of how many contact hours the publisher actually recommended for the text.

But this inevitably caused problems: when teachers felt unable to complete the book in the allotted time, students complained that they had spent money on the book, but didn’t get to finish it. On the other hand, when teachers did manage to finish the textbook, students complained that the course moved too fast for them to really learn the material.

I adopted the solution of breaking the book into two parts, and A and a B. In fact, many textbooks are available in A and B parts from the publisher for this very purpose. At our college, we do the A half in the Fall and the B half in the Spring term. Of course, this solution brings its own problems. Our program--like credit programs—cannot offer both A and B in every course every semester. Consequently students who miss the Fall must either take the B half of the course without having taken the A, or take the B part of the previous level (which they may not need).

However, we need to remember that the division of courses into A and B parts is a bit arbitrary, given that the vast majority of ESL students (unlike EFL students) do not rise evenly through the levels of English, but have developed very uneven skills because of their vastly different histories with English. Indeed, for some students, the B part of the course is precisely what they need. Thus, in many cases, the “problem” of offering B only in the Spring is a false problem—more a problem on paper than in reality. In fact, we have exactly the same problem in the Fall with students who really need the B half, but only the A half is available.

In our program, because we offer a smorgasbord of classes, there are ample opportunities for students to continue to work at their level, particularly to focus on special skills, apart from core courses that do not match their needs for a particular term.

All in all, scheduling problems aside (and disregarding the inevitable confusion at the front office in distinguishing A classes from B classes—with perfectly identical names), the solution of allowing for the contact hours recommended by the publisher seems to be working. The most important thing seems to be to give the students the time they need to study, practice, and use English rather than simply to rush finish a books and collect certificates to prove they’ve “covered” the material.