Coursebook Conundrums (Pt 1)

You have heard, I'm sure, comments from our teachers that they 'must complete the book' and the syllabus, etc. They'll tell you this instruction has come down from the education departments to the GBs and that the Inspectorate expect it to happen too. I have checked this with the MoE and there are no expectations that they will 'complete' it but that they will use it as a guideline. A conflicting message, and most teachers will tend to do as told rather than buck the system and use the book as is necessary in the interests of their children.
“Coursebooks are not always clear regarding the methodology they use in terms of ‘what’ and ‘how’ to teach. There are also cases of inconsistency between stated and actual methodology. Finally, coursebooks cannot be relevant to all teaching/learning contexts." This quotation comes from Cunningham's influential book, Choosing Your Coursebook. Heinemann (1995). So adaptation and supplementation are the really the key words as opposed to complete it. But appropriate adaptation requires teachers to recognise and be informed about the methodology used by the author(s), or to be able to identify the lack of clear methodology. What is more, teachers need to be conscious of their own methodological orientation, that is, their theories and beliefs about the nature of language and teaching/learning. Such awareness is important because teachers’ actual practice may contradict their perceived methodological orientation. Therefore, the effectiveness of coursebook use is contingent on the level of the teachers’ awareness and knowledge.
The basic problems in using a coursebook are that there is rarely enough time to use all of it; it cannot match all possible teaching contexts; it may not offer enough material to cover all of the curriculum, or those parts that the children need most.
The implications are therefore quite obvious: what it offers can never be exactly what the children need; the methodology may not match the teacher's; the curriculum aims and the teacher's aims are rarely matched by the coursebook; the aims of a particular lesson/unit may not match lesson-by-lesson aims; teachers need to prioritize and select; teachers need to supplement (the obvious example here with KSSR1 is with regard to spoken and listening skills development, which are almost non-existent in the book).