Marriages of convenience? Teachers and coursebooks in the digital age

allen, christopher;

This article reports on a survey of Swedish EFL teachers’ attitudes towards, and dependence on, ELT coursebook packages in the light of recent research into digital literacy. The results showed that while ICT is making massive inroads into language classrooms in technologically advantaged countries like Sweden, the coursebook package still has its place assured among trainee teachers, at least for the immediate future. The current generation of ‘digital native’ pre-service teachers still looks to coursebook packages to structure lessons during teaching practice and as a means of providing extended reading practice in the L2. Their more experienced in-service colleagues are, however, increasingly abandoning the coursebook in favour of freestanding digital resources. Practising teachers in the survey increasingly
saw coursebooks in contingency terms and as a ‘fall-back’ position. Finally, the article considers the desirability of a more fundamental abandonment of the coursebook in favour of digital tools and resources in the EFL classroom.