Oxford Experience, Future-proof and Future-ready? Indeed
by Anna Coutsomitelli MEd, EFL instructor, Online course evaluator, Language Mentor
How I discovered Oxford University Press!!
My journey with Oxford University Press since the 90s has been long, exciting, rewarding and precious.
Back then as a student teacher and mentee, I had had the opportunity to be mentored by a Scottish language school owner who seemed to know better. The whole of the curriculum was taught with books by OUP. All teachers had their own copies of books, cassettes and supplementary material all of which we and our students respected and enjoyed tremendously.
Why did I continue to adopt OUP material and moved a step forward?
As time went by, I too became wiser and more knowledgeable and experienced. For decades to come, I followed practices of book evaluation the same way my Scottish mentor did. Ideally, all books have to be evaluated by experts in the field who have been taught what works and what does not work in education.
Textbook evaluation is very important because it does not only provide useful information for the teacher, but also plans learning settings for students. Usually we, educators have got to do a pre-evaluation analysis, an ‘in-use’ evaluation and a reflective evaluation of a textbook that has been used. This is exactly what I have been doing as an educator and mentor for years on end.
What it takes to choose a great book that brings Results
It is of utmost importance to check the characteristics of the textbooks against a collection of criteria such as the aims and objectives of a book, its level, its appropriacy, the skills addressed, the topics covered and so on and so forth. Before adopting a book you should decide how student-friendly it is and if it could accommodate various types of learners. Therefore, the kinds of fonts, the size or space issues, the paper quality, the clarity of instructions and durability and binding – material, as well as the cramming of content which is unfortunately evident in many course books in the market should be carefully scrutinized before adoption as the impact of the wrong material to be used could be detrimental for most learners. Books should be user-friendly. OUP books are.
A smart choice WILL help you make Headway.
Ideally, a book should use authentic texts for EFL, which is a way to provide students with material that will enhance their learning capability, as they add a real-life element to students’ learning experiences. As the demand for linguistic competence or contextual reading techniques can always be a challenge, OUP books provide material that enables and boosts more advanced critical thinking expression, an invaluable competitive advantage.
In my view, OUP lessons are designed to activate schemata that are knowledge about the world already stored in the long-term memory, and develop new schemata that are newly formed knowledge about general and cultural truths that will affect comprehension by exposing students to a variety of stimuli and learning techniques. What more can you ask for?
Teacher and Student friendly – Full of bright Ideas.
The ability to evaluate teaching materials effectively is a very important professional activity for EFL teachers as it not only contributes to student but to teacher satisfaction as well. I can confirm that via the OUP course books, I have come to gain a great amount of knowledge that has contributed to my personal and professional development. Since there is an abundance of EFL materials, one should wonder if they are transparent enough to motivate both teachers and students, because if they are not, there could be dissatisfaction and a student – teacher mismatch. Disastrous!
Different students have different needs. Clear goals and objectives give the teacher a basis for determining which content and activities are appropriate for his/her students. That is, students need to be presented with realistic literacy for different learning styles that promotes growth of interest in independent learning and learner autonomy. Learners need to feel good about themselves and materials need to have personal relevance in order for learning to take place. Activities that support task-based learning and texts and tasks that stretch and challenge students in meaningful ways are abundant in OUP books.
An investment in quality
As Benjamin Franklin has stated ‘’ The bitterness of low quality remains long after the sweetness of low price has been forgotten’’. In my view, this quotation should refer to knowledge, satisfaction, success, as well as a long-term investment in skills and knowledge that are bound to guarantee a future-proof and future – ready, independent and knowledgeable individual. And OUP books can make this happen.
