Mr Hamid Angoud, the Inspector of English in the region of Khemisset, held some meetings about Moroccan English textbooks used in secondary schools (9th grade). I attended a couple of them as a teacher-adviser and I sometimes felt the books were subject to violent criticism by some teachers. As a veteran teacher I have to make a few comments – or say thoughts – about these books and try to render to Caesar what is Caesar's.
However, I should first thank Si Hamid Angoud for the opportunity he gave me to meet those blooming and ambitious young teachers and have honest constructive discussions. It was an opportunity to share our thoughts, experiences, as well as our grievances and aspirations for better and quality education for future generations in Morocco. Heartfelt thanks to teacher-presenters for their well thought-out presentations. Special thanks to the teacher-participants for their valuable contributions and whose criticism mostly comes out of genuine love and admiration for their profession and out of aspiration for a better system of education in general.
I am a veteran teacher but I am not claiming expertise, however. I am veteran in terms of the number of years I spent in teaching. I started teaching in the late eighties and lived both periods: before the home-made textbook and while implementing and using the Moroccan textbook. At that time, in the eighties, we had only the syllabus –an outline of the points and topics to be taught – and we had to prepare everything from scratch: reading texts, listening texts, lesson plans, activities, homework assignments, quizzes, tests, VAs and all. It was so strenuous and exhausting and we sweated a lot because it was very hard – in the absence of the Internet – to find handy material and because we were inexperienced novice teachers groping our way through the labyrinth of the teaching profession. Now, we have our homemade Moroccan textbooks, but they are not perfect books, I have to admit. However, they have made things easier for teachers, and have made their job less demanding at least because they don’t have to start everything from the ground up. They give us all somewhere -a common ground- to start from. However, these books need good teachers because good teachers know how to evaluate and adapt textbooks. Good teachers don’t throw bad textbooks under the bus; they are troubleshooters who try to improve school textbooks using their experience, their knowledge, their know-how, and their creativity. Also, with the Internet services the sky is the limit for finding material to supplement these books and make them cater for the needs of students.
As a reminder, textbooks have, among other things, the following advantages: They serve as a scaffolding for novice teachers and offer them practical help; they provide practical guidance for both novice and seasoned teachers about what to teach and how to teach it; they make it possible for absentees to catch up; they allow class to prepare in advance and good students to work independently of the teacher or even ahead of class; and they permit external legitimate parties (parents, inspectors, principals etc) to have an eye on what is going on in class.
The bottom line is, "a textbook is just one tool, perhaps a very important tool, in your teaching arsenal." They are necessary but some adaptation and improvisation is needed to keep them afloat. That is, teachers should use them wisely and not overuse them blindly.
