Humanising the Coursebook

Today’s course books have some shortcomings. For example, they don’t take into account the resources of the lea
er as a human being , they concentrate on the linguistic and analytical aspects of language lea
ing and fail to tap the human beings potential for multi-dimensional processing. Many of them use an interrogative approach.
One way of humanising a coursebook is for the teacher to replace sections of it with more humanistic materials which involve the lea
ers in gaining and reflecting on experience. The teacher asks the students to write a novel. They are asked to think of an environment they know well and to develop a story situated in it. During every English lesson they are writing their novels. It helps to gain confidence and self-esteem and soon they can present their books with illustrations and beautiful drawings that comprise their own books.
But sometimes teachers are obliged to use a coursebook in all the lessons. In such cases they can humanise it by reducing the non-humanistic elements of the book and by expanding and adding to those sections which invite the lea
ers to think, feel and do in order to lea
. Here's an example of such an approach: