A global textbook vs a local textbook: pros and cons
The quest for "the perfect textbook" is an endless and futile undertaking. It is endless because there are numerous textbooks all over the world, some are better, some are worse, but every day more and more textbooks appear. It is futile because no matter how good a textbook is, the degree of its efficiency and ease of use will greatly vary in different classroom, with different types of learners and in different classroom settings. One thing that is important, however, is who the target learners of the textbook are. This is crucial because if the target learners are defined correctly, the number of hours, the methodology, and, most importantly, the content becomes self-evident.
Throughout my teaching career of 13 years I have tried many different textbooks. And very gradually I've reached a conclusion which, I think, could be interesting for those who are only beginning to teach.
A textbook can be a global one. This means that it targets learners everywhere, all over the world. Such textbooks are based on the assumption that people are more or less the same everywhere, notwithstanding their cultural differences, and that more or less the same things are likely to arouse their interest. Although the covers and the methodologies in such textbooks can vary, their content and topics are very similar. Indeed, every time students are supposed to talk about environmental issues, they discuss tropical rainforests and pollution from large cars. Every time they study adverbs of place, it is a British (or, more rarely, American) house that they describe, as well as a typical street in an English town. When they talk about history, it is mainly English history that is discussed (although here I've seen some very welcome variation). The problem I see with such textbooks is that the world is a much larger place than just Britain, or Europe, or the USA. And our students need not only to be able to receive information about the world, but also to share stories about their own country and about their own lives. And they need to get enough of comprehensible input, speaking in S. Krashen's terms, to be able to acquire enough language to do that.
True communication happens not when one person adjusts his/her linguistic behaviour to that of his/her interlocutor, but when everyone in the conversation remains standing on the cultural position of his/her country and pays due respect to the cultural features of the interlocutor. From this point of view. learning only about one or two countries during the course of study is pointless. A more "culturally-aware" textbook would need to be localised, it needs to contain at least some information about the pupils' culture, history and country, otherwise instead of being representatives of their own country, they will fall into the trap of 'cultural imperialism" and will feel that there is only one 'correct" model of behaviour, that only certain interests and presumptions are correct or just interesting.
when I was using global textbooks in my classroom, I always felt that my own country was dramatically underrepresented there. Indeed, what information about Russia will you normally find in a global textbook? The same trite stories about matryoshkas, the taiga and at best some mention of Russia's size. Is that the kind of information a pupil needs to develop his/her cultural awareness, to understand the differences and similarities between his/her own and the target language's country's culture? I doubt it.
I firmly believe that to enable out students communicate freely, represent our country and assimilate foreign culture rather than replace their own with it, we need textbook that would provide basis for comparisons and lead to a better understanding of students' own culture through the target language country's one.
How can it be achieved? If we take a look at the currently most popular Russian EFL textbooks, we shall see that there are different ways to do it. For example, "Happy English.ru" is based on a story, where the main characters are a Russian boy and his Scottish friend (as well as plenty of secondary British characters). The story takes place in Russia, in England and in the USA, thus enabling the students to compare the three countries, to see what communication problems can arise there unless we take the cultural features into consideration and how we shall be interesting interlocutors only when we remain ourselves. Another advantage of those textbooks is that they promote common values that Russian students hould be able to appreciate and share with their foreign peers: freedom, democracy, friendship, willingness to compromise and to help each other. I am sure that by teaching such values we as educators help to build a brighter future for us all.
A slightly different approach is used in the "Enjoy English" textbooks, which constitute probably the most popular Russian EFL course there is. There the authors take us by the hand and let us read about British museums, sights, schools, public services etc. But every time we read, say, about London, we turn to our own hometowns and discuss what we could show to our foreign friends, what is good and interesting about the places we live in etc. Thus we elicit a lot of student-generated content, which they can use later on. I remember how I was teaching a class in which the pupils told me that they have no idea where they could take a foreign friends in our small town as "there is nothing interetsing or good about our place", they said. I changed the question slightly and asked the students what they like to do in the summer or on week-ends. And they told me immediately, that they like to go on walks in the shadowy alleys, that they love swimming in the river, that they play football at their school's sports ground, that we have one of the largest sugar plans in the country (a sight!), that they like to walk along an ancient fortification (another sight!) etc etc. After this discussion I once again asked them to make the programme of a three-day stay for a foreign friend, and this time they started to protest that three days are not enough to show a foreign friend all there is worth seeing inthe town. This change of attitude was made possible only by the leaner-centered approach and the exercises and stance of the "Enjoy English" textbooks. This has enabled me to develop a lot of self-respect and interest towards their own as well as the target language's culture in my students.
Yet another popular course is "Millie-New Millennium English". This course tries to get across the idea that there is something interesting in every country and culture. When pupils learn to talk about houses in their first year of studying English, they learn about igloos as well as typical houses in other countries. When they learn to talk about toys, they learn about the customs connected with toys, taht exist in japan and are celebrated on father's day and Mother's day there. And every time students talk about such things, they keep discussing what good things they'd like to introduce in their own country and what good things they could share with their foreign friends. When children grow up a little, the focus shifts slightly. At this age critical thinking needs to be developed, by which I mean that students need to be able to distinguish between fact and fiction, between what is good for them and not so good, and decide what they can do to make their own lives and their world better. They read about heroes and role-models from their own country and from other countries too, they read about a successful project which helped to make the otherwise dull town a tourist attraction and immediately they try to design a project to improve their own hometown, they read about traditions of different countries, and those of their own take about 50 per cent of the texts. This helps us to ensurethat students do not take all good things for granted, that they realise that often hard work is needed to build on any country's rich cultural heritage, but that their own background allows them to improve their own lives and be their own masters with due respect to other countries and cultures.
This is what I can say about the cultural and informational advantages of local textbooks as compared with the global ones. One could also talk about how a textbook should consider the students' first language and arrange grammar and vocabulary teaching accordingly. Localisation, or even better, creation of EFL books in and for specific countries help to design a better, more efficient textbook which makes the task of teaching English and educating students much easier for the teacher.
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