Back when I was just a year or two off the RSA/ Cambridge CTEFLA, I remember one of my biggest worries was the way that the best students got even better quicker than the worst ones improved and the already difficult mixed level class split further and further apart over the length of the course. I tried to encourage the other students to catch (or at least keep) up and varied the lesson and homework to suit them, but looking back another thing I did was try to hold those best students back to keep them within the range of levels that I could cope, with things like very limited homework, stopping them working ahead in the students’ book and workbook, and focussing on their accuracy on the point at hand to stop them rushing ahead with the next one. Other things that could be said to achieve mainly this include limiting correction of written work or other errors to the language in the book, and trying to keep them “on topic” all the time. Getting annoyed at other teachers for teaching the students things that are supposed to be the focus of your level or lesson is also part of this.

I have no idea if other teachers are guilty of those sins, but I know for a fact that publishers are. When I got feedback for the textbook proposal that later became the What the Future of Textbooks Has to Be article, the editor sounded downright scared by a workbook that would set students free to study as much as they wanted to and could, at a time and order that suited them. And in the book for three year olds that I am reviewing at the moment they decide to teach one number per unit (Unit 3 – the number three) and four colours over the length of the book. Why? Could it be because the next book in the series is already out and they have to hold student backs so they don’t know everything in it before they open the first page next year? I have a strong suspicion that the answer is yes, if only because it is part of the kind of mega-series that I wrote about a couple of posts ago.