I would love to be able to come up with a catchy name or consistent philosophy (like Dogme) for the process that I described in my worksheets post below, but long-winded and random are much more my personal ways of doing things. Luckily, though, it seems to have been done for me.
From what I understand of it, that process of polishing up my teaching by polishing up my worksheets seems to have a lot in common with the Japanese business concept of kaizen – a “philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes… and involves all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers.” (Wikipedia kaizen page) My interpretation of that is that you don’t need an overall plan, you just work on improving the little things and before you know it the whole thing is so much better.
That might not sound like a recipe for radical change (and hence its appeal to Mr Case, I hear those who remember my semi-defense of PPP mutter…), but actually it is just as likely to lead to a Toyota Prius or S&M love hotel as it is to someone spending far too much time developing a clever way of opening a pack of juice. And come to think of it, the latter is one of the real pleasure of living in Japan anyway.
I’ve been wondering for a while whether the idea could have any other applications to TEFL. I’m almost certain that a kaizen textbook that improved month by month after feedback from the teachers and students would be better than the New New Headnewway New Editions that throw away the best of the old bits along with the worst every time, but of course you’ve got the expense of print runs etc. It could at least be done with teachers’ guides and photocopiable resource books though – sell them as printable e-books and constantly update and improve them instead of having the same wrong answer keys and missing tapescripts five years later when the next edition comes out with its fresh batch of wrong answer keys and missing tapescripts… And you’d add a lot more motivation to using the book, by making it something you are involved in rather than just a consumer of.
Agreed? Thought of any other uses for kaizen in TEFL? Using some already? Have your say:
TEFLtastic 
A nice analogy. And to some extent, kaizen reflects the developmental stage of making a text but once things are into print…
Partly it’s the printing costs and the size of the print runs needed that make it difficult after that, but also it’s the distribution system. Different pipelines, books in the pipes for different lengths of time, makes for a system where with incrementally improved texts, even just once a year with an annual print run (which is something we feel serious temptation to do), different versions of the same text would end up in the classroom and this is something that seriously disgruntles teachers.
OTOH with ebooks or other downloadable materials you not only get rid of the production costs and their sliding scale, you also get rid of the pipelines and so it becomes entirely more feasible.
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Hmmmmn….
But you’re missing the point of coursebooks. They exist only to generate income for the publishers and distributers.
We have long known that it’s better to have downloadable resources and choose from as wide a range as possible. But such resources are too easily copied (though coursebooks and workbooks are copied easily too.)
There is very little I’ve seen in a coursebook that can’t be done better with a worksheet, a set of cards or just pencil/paper and a whiteboard. Most of my ‘ideas’ are just improved versions of something I saw in a coursebook.
I hate using coursebooks because they generate more problems than they solve. We all know students who race ahead and fill in all the answers to every exercise then sit back smugly ruining it all for everyone else. And students who want to do everything on every page.
Having said that, I think a KAIZEN approach to course design and lesson materials is an excellent idea. It keeps everything looking fresh (to the teacher at least) and is better than throwing away everything to embark on a radical new idea which seems to be a problem in state systems.
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I was definitely a bit optimistic with the textbooks (although I think small print runs aren’t as expensive as they used to be), but I don’t think teachers’ books make much money (CUP give their ESP ones away for free). Anyway, not only could they still sell them, they could also sell a much improved product and one that is much more motivating to use
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This seems to be happening to some extent:
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