Wondering if people at other institutions experience a similar PITA.
There’s a fairly short “authorised list” of textbooks, selected by committee, that have to be used. It used to discretionary but became mandatory a couple of years ago, without any discussion. I’ve been on the committee in the past but my complaints/suggestions were generally ignored and they don’t ask me any more.
The books are generally selected at a too-high level of difficulty, for face reasons, and laziness. (If there are 4 levels of text, and we have 4 streams, that’s all they need to know. Considering the content would be work.)
More importantly they keep changing the list every year, so (a) if you find a book you like, you probably can’t keep using it (b) You have little opportunity to get better with the material, learning new tricks/from mistakes and accumulating supporting resources. Its pointless make-work. The only justification I’ve heard was that it kept them current with the latest educational theories. (Though I guess it also helps book sales )
I’ve just seen the Language Centre’s booklist, and my preferred books, that, unusually, I have been able to keep on the list for the past 2 years, are no longer on it. I would very much like to ignore the list and continue to use these books, but I doubt I can get away with it.
I’m not sure how it works at your school, but at mine this “required” list is actually very flexible - lots of teachers just seem to do their own thing and express surprise when they discover there are even guidelines, never mind supposedly-required books. Technically I believe we’re allowed to use the required book, OR no book at all, but it seems like lots of teachers pay no attention to that rule anyway.
This came up in one of the meetings this year: “So, hold on, these requirements mean nothing?! So why do we spend hours every year discussing what books to put on a list that everyone ignores anyway?!”
I guess I’m in the position that you were a couple of years ago: the books on the current list are ones that I recommended. I’m not a fan of them being required for everyone, because I’m sure those books piss some others off, but they suit me fine. At least at my school they try to use the same books for a couple of years or more.
So yes, my university does have a similar PITA, but I gather it’d be fairly easy to ignore it if I so chose.
I’m quite new to the institution where I work. We had a meeting a couple of weeks ago about the “authorised list”, and I discovered that there were no guidelines at all for what actually gets included in the list and what doesn’t.
There isn’t even a semblance of a curriculum or any documentation of goals, methodologies, assessment procedures, program evaluation procedures, etc. etc. Given that most teachers totally rely on textbooks for these things, you’d think we’d have some guidelines for choosing a textbook. But no, as far as I can tell, it just needs to look like a textbook - you know, be written in English, have a few colourful pictures, and something about grammar. Other than that, it seems anything goes. You just tell the director you want to use it, and it goes on the list. That way, everybody teaches from the authorised list. Easy.
Yeh, well, you guys are apparently operating in standard “windowdressed liberal clueless chaos” mode, in that there are “rules” for display purposes, which may be very stupid, but they aren’t enforced. I’d have no problem with that.
Here its “windowdressed totalitarian clueless chaos”. Not so palatable.
A couple of years ago I independently dropped a textbook order from Advanced (WAY too difficult, and irritatingly vague/ambiguous. I’ve come to think “Advanced” might be publishers euphemism for “written by our biggest fuckwits”) to High-Intermediate (= bad enough). Boss found out, big shouting match and the publishers rep got told off not to accept a direct order from me again.
I’m pissed-off enough to do it again, but since we have to publish our syllabi, with the text on it, students often buy the books in advance, and the office places batch orders to the on-site bookstore based on our syllabi and class-numbers, it’d be difficult to get away with it.
I heard another reason from a book publishers rep. today. “To be fair to the other publishers”. I’m not sure if thats intended to encourage, or discourage, red envelopes.
Perhaps I’ll experiment with red envelopes next year, if there is a next year.
(Though I guess it also helps book sales 
)