Adopting Course Book To Meet The Exploration of the Expectations of the Syllabus and the Students Local Needs.A Focus on Teacher Practise.

With the rapid English language teaching development, more and more books have made their way into the market and choosing the right course book to meet the expectations of the syllabus and the students’ local needs is becoming more and more important at all levels of English language teaching. This paper examined ways of adapting course books by teachers of English language in secondary school in Kenya, so as to meet the expectations of the syllabus and the students’ needs. With effort from text book writers, English language teaching researchers and classroom teachers, course book adaption has evolved from ad hoc to systematic action. Although most classroom teachers may not be involved in the production of the syllabus and the text books, they have the responsibility for course book adaptation. Reference to the term course book has expanded from books to all materials used in English language teaching. It has evolved into a great variety of resources used in language classrooms such as audio cassettes, videos, CD-ROMs, flash cards and other authentic materials such as newspapers, photographs, advertisements and radio/TV programmes. The findings of this paper revealed that, for a course book to help a student learn language, it has to be perceived as relevant to the student’s needs and provide new learning experiences that connect with the student’s previous knowledge. It recommended that, for effective teaching/learning to take place successfully, teachers should play an active role in adapting course books. They should throw away the so called course books in traditional pedagogy and adapt authentic materials in their practices.