© 1999 by Oxford University Press
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Helping less-experienced teachers of English to evaluate teachers' guides
Worked variously as a teacher of literacy and ESOL, and as a teacher trainer in Namibia, the UK, and Japan. After working in the EFL Unit and Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Essex, where she obtained her MA in Applied Linguistics, she now works at Hilderstone College, Kent.
This article presents recommendations for an evaluation checklist for teachers' guides intended for less-experienced teachers of English, and for those who lack confidence in their own English proficiency. It is suggested that this fills a gap in the current literature on materials evaluation, which is mainly aimed at an audience of experienced teachers of English. Reasons for evaluating materials are given, followed by a discussion of published checklists, and a revised compilation of their criteria in a concise checklist which makes use of a simple method of priority weighting (see Appendix). The final product can be used by teachers independently, or as an introduction to materials evaluation in teacher training.