Consciousness-raising and practice in ELT coursebooks

Abstract

Most general ELT coursebooks currently include grammar tasks, suggesting a common view in ELT that learners benefit from form-focused tasks to improve their L2 accuracy. To investigate the nature of such tasks, we developed a framework of consciousness-raising and practice task types, applied it to nine contemporary ELT coursebooks, and thus identified a number of current trends. Despite notable differences among the nine coursebooks, each one is essentially based on a Presentation-Practice approach to grammar teaching. Both inductive and deductive approaches are seen in the presentation stages, followed by two types of practising task. There is little evidence to date of focused communication tasks. These findings are discussed, and should be useful for teachers wishing to evaluate their own selection of grammar tasks and coursebooks.