Teaching English in the Priy Classroom | страница 51

Another question of the questionnaire (see question 26 in appendix I, p. 102)
asked teachers to refer to the criteria which they employ in order to choose the
teaching material for the 3rd grade, as this is not centrally imposed. Such a question
was considered that would give respondents the chance to refer to some of their
teaching priorities. The distribution of their answers is shown in figure 9 below (see
appendix IV, p. 115, table 26).
What criteria did you employ for the selection of the
coursebook for the 3rd grade?
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

11
3

8

8
3

I have used it It corresponds It matches the
It helps
before
to my students’
aims and
students learn
needs
objectives of
how to learn
the language
learning
programme

0

1

It has an
attractive

It follows an
appropriate
methodology

Figure 9. The criteria respondents employ for the selection of their teaching material

As it is shown in figure 9, as a first criterion respondents consider the degree
to which the teaching material corresponds to their students’ needs. However, as it is
common practice for the books to be ordered in June, before teachers have even met
their new students, what respondents refer to, as Berwick (1989: 55) stresses, is not
what students feel they need (felt needs) but, rather, what the teachers themselves as
experts consider as their students’ needs (perceived needs). West (1994: 2) stresses
the fact that language teachers have frequently based their teaching on some kind of
intuitive analysis of students’ needs and emphasizes (ibid: 13) that, especially in the
case of young learners who seem to present the ultimate TENOR situation whose
needs cannot yet been defined (see Abbott 1981), it is a recurrent practice for
syllabuses to be developed on a structural basis. However, Nunan (1989b: 177)
emphasizes that ‘…no curriculum can claim to be truly learner-centred unless the
learners’ subjective needs and perceptions relating to the processes of learning are
taken into account’.
As it is shown in figure 9, as a second criterion respondents consider the
degree to which the teaching material matches with the aims and objectives of the
language learning programme. However, such a claim seems rather inconsistent with
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