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that have the potential to involve the forming actions, playinggames, mim- pork. They also receive guidelines on
learnersemotionally byeliciting curi- ingstories, making models etc., at the how to avoid sexism and racism by
osity, suspense, humour, excitement, earlystages of the Multi-Dimensional presenting on an equal proportion
joy and laughter and by creating a Approach provide learnerswith mean- male and female heroes, as well as di-
classroom environment in which learn- ingful experience of the language in rections on how to present their col-
ing is a stimulating,enjoyable andsue- use.That waystudentsdo not have to oured heroes. Analogous directions
cessful experience. What should be worry about producing correct lan- are given to the teams that work on
avoided is activities that are mechani- guage before they are ready, while at the illustrations and layout of the
cal, bland, trivial or designed to trap the same time they begin the process books. As a result, writers typically
the students. Learners can beencour- of a multi-dimensional representation suppress their personalities and views
aged to create mental images through as they represent the instructions in and they present to the learner a
imaging activities inwhich the teacher their minds before tryingtocarry them sanitizedworld,which is bland and dull
guides them to see, smell, hear or out. and in which there isvery little excite-
touch things in their minds. Such a ment or disturbance to stimulate the
process can be attained by instructing The traditional coursebook emotions of the learner. The typical
the students appropriately for analo- and its disengagement from coursebook world is safe, clean, har-
gous language activities (e.g. "Try to affect monious, benevolent, undisturbed
see your ideal house in your mind. and PG-rated. What is absent, though
Then describe it to your partner "). pedagogicallysignificant, is: jeopardy,
Needless tosay that after such instruc- In engaging the students in such a face threat, negotiation implicature(or
tionsappropriate timeshould be given holistic way of language learning, the implied meaning) and context. The
to make the activityachieve itsend and everyday teacher has a powerful and danger of the dominance of this neu-
therefore become a pragmatic task ever-present subtlefoe, the traditional tral world in theEFLclassroom is that
and not a pointless classroom activity. EFL materials, that is, in most cases, it can reduce the learner from an indi-
Tasks which involve imaging as an ini- the popular coursebooks that we are vidual human being with views, atti-
tiating move could be such as drawing all very well acquainted of and have tudes and emotions to a language
what happens in a story, miming the used in our teaching careers. In the learner whose brain is focused nar-
actions in a story one is listening to, all-growinguniformityof coursebooks, rowly on the low-level linguistic de-
following a recipe, following instruc- it is not difficult at all for the experi- coding. Such a perspective sanitises
tions in order to playa newgame,etc. enced teacher and for the researcher and trivialises learning and thus de-
todiscernsome common characteris- prives the learner from a chance to
Knowing a language is most of all be- tics, which stem from the very nature encounter an emotive appeal. In ad-
ing able to think in it, because the pri- of the ordinary coursebook and its dition to their thematic handicap to
mary use of language is in thought. genesis. Those characteristics are produce an affective impact, most
Learningan L2involvesincorporation proven to be powerful handicaps books are grammar focused and they
of that language into one’s inner lan- when examined in thelight of what has treat reading and listening as oppor-
guage. However, language learners been said so far concerning the na- tunities to learn language and speak-
ture of language learning and its
very rarely are given the timespace to ing and writing as opportunities to
develop an inner voice in the L2 be- mechanisms. practise it. This means that even if
cause theyare constantly being urged potentially engaging texts and activi-
to produce in the outer voice and be- The trend today is for EFL ties are included, the learners are of-
cause many of the activities they take coursebooks to be produced by inter- ten disengaged by being asked about
part in require little mental prepara- national publishing houses and forglo- the meaning of words rather than
tion or response. Starting with com- bal use.Such a perspective entailscer- about their responses to the text, and
prehension activities which require tain restrictions that are responsible by being told what to say and how to
mental and physical responses and fordiminishing the affective impact of say it. Another way in which
postponing language production ac- the books on their users. Global coursebooks diminish the learner is by
tivities until the learners have had the coursebooks require massivefinancial making the textsshort and simple and
opportunity to start to develop an in- investment and publishersare not will- by ensuring that the learners spend
ner voice,could be oneway of helping ing to risk their money on books that most of their time doing easy practice
students to produce thoughts in L2. may contain topics or activitieswhich activities that do not challenge them
could disturb the authorities in a par-
Encouraginglearners to talk to them- ticular region.Hence,writers are pro- cognitively nor engage them emotion-
selves in the L2for "homework " could ally.
alsofacilitate the use of L2for the pro- vided with lists of subjects to be
duction of thoughts.Kinestheticactivi- avoided in designing a new Locally produced books could offer
ties,similar to those of theTotal Physi- coursebook.Those undesirable,taboo
topics includesex, drugs,alcohol, reli-
cal Response method, such as per- »»
gion, violence, politics, history and
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