Of all the changes in ELT publishing since I’ve been teaching, the worst has to be the five year plans that lead to a book being launched in August 2012 however ready it is or, more likely, isn’t. A prime example of the consequences of this that I found recently was an IELTS teacher’s book that said “Turn to page 00 for the tapescript”, 00 being what the writers put on all pages until the final stage when they know what all those numbers will actually be. Would’ve taken about an hour for someone to go through the book and check that all those 00s had been changed. In fact, you probably could’ve done it with an automatic search of some kind…
The worst symptom of this worst practice has to be, however, the thrown-together last unit. The 25 random language points all chucked in is a “classic”. Another is getting the only topic that they could think of that hadn’t been used elsewhere in the six-textbook series, say “Crazy pets” or “I love my tractor” – bit like choosing car names when every non-rude word in the world has been taken.
Cutting Edge Advanced, however, takes the soggy biscuit. There’s what I mentioned above, with expecting your class to spend nine hours just on the topic of “lying”. Worse, though, is that they obviously had their doubts about that topic too. Every page of Module 10 is on the tiresome topic of fibs, but all the supplementary material is on the totally unconnected topic of free time! Apart from the writing materials, that is, which are just missing – along with most of the tapescripts. You have to laugh!*
*or you’d cry. In fact, if you’d just come off your CELTA and got given that class, you probably would…
TEFLtastic 
Yes, would probably help if coursebook writers actually planned out their entire unit scope and sequence in advance, wouldn’t it? What a novel idea…
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Wouldn’t blame the authors, but I have been known to run out ideas before the end of a course myself…
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I’m guessing authors tout their basic ideas around the publishers and then when one bites they sit down and try to write it all before the deadline. If the deadline is too tight, would be authors are unlikely to say so but would just get stuck in and if they ran out of ideas before the end too bad.
Most coursebooks seem to have 2-3 questionable units – but the last one is so often the worst. I suppose the authors know that the last one is the least likely to be used and give it the least effort.
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This is interesting, Alex. As a writer, I usually drafted my units in order of sequence according to a thorough plan already completed in advance, but in completing the units I often skipped around to give myself a better sense of flow. Some topics are harder to write about than others, and sometimes it’s useful to go to the end and work backwards, to ensure there is a reasonable build up in the skillwork and variety of activities. In fact, if there was any weakness in my own units, I would probably say the ones in the middle were it, representing that difficult position that needs to feed both backwards and forwards in unifying a series of units. Don’t know if that makes a lot of sense…
I don’t know how it works at the editing end, however. I do know the final units were the ones I got the least feedback on, and sometimes changes were made without asking me about them. Perhaps those final units are the ones the publisher spends the least amount of time on as they rush to be ready for the printer – who knows?
– Jason
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Jason- I was talking about teaching myself, but you seem to be agreeing that the publishers are more to blame
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Andy
Not much touting of ideas around publishers nowadays. The publisher decides the concept behind the book and asks teachers to send proposals on how they would write that book.
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I see. That’s interesting to know. It kind of explains how ‘soulless’ and uninspired some of the more recent ones have been.
The last book I felt excited about teaching was Inside Out when it was new. It seemed to work quite well with a wide range of students from all over the world when I was teaching in the UK and groups of Koreans in Korea. It did start to get tired after a while of course and had it’s last unit syndrome too. What was the one about a huge cruise ship? and the unit titled ‘digital’ that was outdated fast.
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I feel your pain, Alex. I feel your pain.
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