Today I want to write a little bit about course books and how they’ve changed over the last 30 years. And when I was at school, language learning materials were often quite dated, not particularly colorful, and often rather uninspiring. And the situation now is completely different when it comes to global course books for learning English as a foreign language. We’ve got so much choice available to us and course books are extremely attractive in their appearance. They look a bit like glossy magazines with beautiful photography. For example, the new course book series called Life has stunning photographs from National Geographic magazine.
Another trend in course book materials is to include information rich topics so language learners are learning far more than just the language. They can actually learn something about the world, about different cultures, and learn different skills too. In addition, there is a trend I think for language learners to use mobile apps and to learn languages 24/7 whilst they’re on the go. So publishers feel an obligation really to supply a package of different types of learning resources for learners so that they can learn language wherever they might be.
Think about a course book you used to learn a new language when you were at school.
– Write down one thing you liked about it.
– Write down one thing you disliked about it.
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