Forums

a. Look at these comments from a teacher about coursebooks. Do you agree?
"I think it is impossible to find the perfect book; each one has good and bad things" -I don't think so; you can find it and you can always adapt it to your needs.
"A good coursebook should have themes which relate to the children, lots of recycling and lots of pictures" - Totally agree. Children need to feel identified with the topics they are learning, they need to see, touch!
"It isn't enough to have a Students' Book, Teacher's Book and Workbook. A teacher needs other things, like flash cards and supplementary components" - Of course! That's why I chose Banana Plant as the best Course Book, since it offered lots of supplementary material such as videos, website, flashcards, posters...

b. "What is your favourite coursebook. Why?" I haven't used many, but I'm very happy with the one I'm using this year: CHEEKY MONKEY (MacMillan). It's for Kindergarten, and it's very complete. It offers all this supplementary material I was talking before, and moreover, there's the puppet of the book, Cheeky Monkey, which children love!!

In my opinion, coursebooks are useful, but they are never enough. The Teacher's book, flashcards, workbooks, audiofiles and other resources that usually come with the coursebook are very useful, but they can't suit all needs. They are good as guidelines though or when you are in a real hurry. Sometimes, the themes aren't very interesting for the students so I have to adapt them to their needs or completely change them. Also, they limit the syllabus, but who said we can't add anything. Anyway, coursebooks are usually a good starting point for our creativity. The rest is up to us.