Designing Language Courses

The explanation is very clear for a teacher to understand how a course is developed. Good for people who are going to teach a language.

I am not sure why English language teaching books have a penchant for boring cover designs, but sometimes they really live up to the old adage of never judging books by their covers. Kathleen Graves' "Designing Language Courses" is a case in point. The book has a clear organisation that is easily followed and takes you through a process that is clear and succinct. With a description of the framework Graves uses at the start, the rest of the book forms a logical and consistent whole with it. The chapters take you right through the whole gamut of course design from getting to your beliefs about teaching right up to evaluation. Each section is detailed, though not so much that it overloads you with it. Any unusual or specific terminology is explained throughout and there is a lot of reference to other authors and research. The book has a thorough approach to the subject, giving recommended reading suggestions at the end of each chapter. A real positive in this book is the use of sections Graves calls "Teachers' Voices". These are little sections within the chapters, (well, some are not so "little"), where working teachers give their experiences and thoughts on the aspect of course design at hand. These teachers come from a variety of professional and working backgrounds, and they provide rich input and insight. I found these to be especially valuable. One previous reviewer said they found it an unfriendly book for the user, and I have to disagree. I thought it was an immensely useful and easy to access book. I loved it and found it very interesting and very useful. I would even go so far as to say that anyone looking at course design should look at this book. Graves has done an excellent job.

I bought this book as a requirement for my Masters Program...TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) and I was expecting to find another uninteresting textbook. The book was great! This book is truly designed with the teacher in mind. The information was clear, easy to understand, and helpful. The book stresses the importance of how teachers need to take a students' needs into consideration in order to get the most out of your curriculum! If you are a student in a teacher preparation program...don't throw, give, or sell this book. It would be wise to keep this in your reference library!

Easy to read and arrived as promised. One could build a curriculum without an instructor using this book.

This book by Kathleen Graves is one of the best for teachers of foreign languages that I have ever read. This gives a wonderful guideline for each step of the curriculum creation process. You'll get lots of advice on how to assess you students' needs, how to focus on their needs, and how to adapt textbooks to serve their learning need more effectively. I recommend this for every beginning language teacher if you haven't read this in your training already. I didn't read this until I was eight years into my career, and I wish I had been able to read it earlier.