7.1 Criteria for Selecting Coursebook Materials

7.1 Criteria for Selecting Coursebook Materials

Quick Answer: TKT Module 2 asks why a teacher chooses a coursebook, a unit, or a single page for these learners and this aim. Typical criteria include syllabus/scheme fit, level and cognitive load, age, cultural appropriacy, balance of skills and systems, authenticity of texts and recordings, visual layout and engagement, teacher's book support, time, class size, exam-class needs, and availability. You do not need to know any named series for the paper.

OpenExamPrep publishes independent study material for exam ID tkt-module2. Cambridge Assessment English owns TKT and publishes the module syllabus; this chapter teaches functions of materials, not brand names as if they appear on the test.

Why selection is always local

A coursebook is a published sequence of texts, tasks, and recordings written for a wide market. Your class is not that market. When TKT items describe a teacher selecting materials, the stem almost always gives a class profile (age, level, size, reason for learning) and a lesson aim (a skill, a language system, or a communicative function). The credited answer is the criterion that connects those two facts to the page.

Selection happens at three scales:

1. Book level — Does this coursebook, as a whole, suit the programme (hours per week, exam class or general English, primary or adult)?
2. Unit level — Does this week's unit serve the scheme of work, or is it a detour into a topic you cannot justify?
3. Page/task level — Even when the school has already bought the book, you still select which page to open and which exercise to spend time on.

The third scale is the one candidates miss. "The school bought it" explains availability. It does not cancel level, culture, time, or aim. You can still reject a page, use only the recording, or choose the warmer on page 41 instead of the reading on page 42.

Criterion → classroom question

Use this table as a pre-lesson filter. For every candidate page, ask the question in the right-hand column. If you cannot answer "yes, because…", do not pretend the page is a good selection.

Pretty photographs sit under visual layout. Layout can be a valid reason to choose page A over page B when both otherwise fit. Layout is a weak reason when it is the only reason and level or culture fail.

Worked selection, not a brand review

Scenario A — evening adults, writing aim. Twelve B1 healthcare assistants in a municipal class meet twice a week for 90 minutes. This week's aim: write a short workplace email requesting a shift swap. The coursebook unit is "At the shopping centre," with a colourful two-page spread: clothing vocabulary, a recorded shop dialogue, and a gap-fill on too / enough. The photos are excellent. Decision: reject this spread for today's writing aim. Syllabus fit fails. Visual engagement cannot rescue a mismatch of function (shopping small talk versus workplace email). A later page in the same book that shows a model email — even with a dull grey layout — is a better selection. If no email page exists, you are no longer selecting from the coursebook; you are looking at supplementary materials. For this lesson, the honest TKT description is: the teacher did not select the shopping spread because it did not fit the aim.

Scenario B — selecting a page inside an imposed book. The director of studies issued one coursebook to every junior-high class. Kenji still has to teach Thursday's 50 minutes. He compares two pages in the same unit. Page 28 is a reading about a mixed-gender sleepover with a comic-strip of pyjama jokes. Page 29 is a short listening of a student asking a teacher for extra homework time, then a controlled Could I…? drill. His learners are 13, in a context where the sleepover comic would cause giggles and parental complaint, and his scheme says "polite requests" this week. Decision: select page 29. Cultural appropriacy and scheme fit beat the "funnier" comic. He has not rewritten the book; he has chosen a page.

Scenario C — exam class, time, and availability. Fatima has 32 learners in a 40-minute exam-prep lesson. The double-page "suggested timing" in the teacher's book is 90 minutes and includes a running dictation in the corridor. The audio file for the listening is missing from the staff-room computer this week. Decision: she cannot select the running dictation (class size + time + building rules). She cannot select the listening until the file is available. She can select the 12-line model writing at the bottom of the page because it matches this week's school-leaving writing task and needs no audio. Availability and exam-class needs are doing real work here.

Scenario D — authenticity versus level. An A2 tourism class needs practice scanning notices (opening hours, "closed for staff training"). The coursebook offers (1) a fully simplified cartoon notice with five invented shop names, and (2) a denser authentic-style museum notice with two unknown words. If the aim is scan for numbers and days, the denser notice can still be selected: cognitive load is managed by the task (they do not need every word). If the aim is detailed decoding of every sentence, the simplified notice is the better selection. Authenticity is not automatically "better"; it is better when it serves the aim at a load the class can carry.

Load is not only "level"

Teachers often say "it's too difficult" when they mean three different things. TKT language keeps them separate:

• Language level: structures and lexis above the class's current range.
• Cognitive load: too many simultaneous demands (new topic + new form + long recording + new grouping).
• Task level: the procedure is hard (infer attitude; write 120 words) even if the language is known.

A page of present simple at A2 language level can still be a poor selection if it asks beginners to hold an eight-step information gap in a class of 38 with no model. That is load and class size, not "the grammar is wrong." When you read a TKT stem, ask which of the three the teacher actually failed to check.

Teacher's book, layout, and the pretty-book trap

The teacher's book is a selection criterion because it changes whether a page is teachable tomorrow morning. Answer keys, tapescripts, language notes, and extra drills are support. Choosing a page you cannot run for lack of a key is a logistics failure, especially for a newer teacher.

Visual layout matters when:

• Stages are numbered and icons show "listen / speak / write," which reduces setup time in a large class.
• A cluttered page hides the instruction line, so learners start the wrong exercise.

Visual layout does not matter enough when:

• You choose the book because the cover is fashionable.
• You choose a celebrity-photo reading whose lexis is far above the class.
• You skip a plain model text that actually matches the writing aim.

That is the pretty-book trap: engagement is a real criterion, but it is never the only one. A glossy mall photograph does not make C1 clothing-review prose suitable for A2 writers of workplace email.

The "school bought it" trap at page level

Administrators purchase books. Teachers still select tasks. On TKT, a stem such as "The school has already chosen the coursebook" does not make "ignore the learners" the answer. You still apply age, culture, time, size, and aim to today's page. What you cannot do is throw the book away every lesson (that becomes a materials-writing job, not selection). The professional move is: select the best available page, then adapt if needed (section 7.2).

Cultural appropriacy is not optional decoration

Cultural appropriacy includes:

• Alcohol, dating, political figures, religious festivals, body image, and gendered household roles.
• Assumed shared knowledge ("remember this national holiday") that is not shared.
• Humour that relies on stereotyping a nationality in the room.

Ignoring culture is a frequent TKT distractor: the teacher "liked the joke," the class went quiet, and the aim never started. Selecting another page in the same unit is still selection. Telling the class to "be mature about the sleepover comic" is not a criterion; it is a refusal to use one.

Putting the filters in order

You do not score every criterion equally every day. A practical order for a busy teacher:

1. Aim and syllabus/scheme fit (if this fails, stop).
2. Age and cultural appropriacy (if this fails, stop or swap the topic).
3. Level and cognitive load (select a simpler page, or plan to grade the task).
4. Skills/systems balance and authenticity relative to the aim.
5. Time, class size, availability, teacher's book, exam-class needs.

Layout sits inside step 4 or 5: use it to break a tie, not to override a failed step 1–3. The flowchart above is that order as a decision, not a claim that Cambridge prints this diagram on the paper.

The pie chart below is a worked example, not an official exam weight. It shows why a teacher with a speaking aim should not select a page just because it sits in a "skills" unit: most of the published minutes may still be silent form practice.

How to use the pie when you select

If Thursday's aim is spoken polite requests, a page whose published minutes look like that pie is a weak selection for that aim, even if the photographs are strong and the unit title says "Skills." You would either choose a different page with a fuller speaking stage, or you would admit that this page can supply the model and will need adaptation (addition of a mingle) in 7.2. Selection and adaptation are neighbours; TKT still wants you to name why this page was or was not chosen before you name the tweak.

Traps to name on the paper

• Pretty-book trap: layout/engagement used as the only reason while level, culture, or aim fail.
• Culture-blind trap: a joke, festival, or relationship scenario that excludes learners, treated as "just a picture."
• School-bought trap: treating availability as the only criterion that still applies when you are choosing a page.
• Level/load collapse: calling a page "the right level" because the grammar box says present simple, while the recording is long, the lexis is dense, and the procedure has eight steps.
• Exam-class trap: selecting a corridor game in a 40-minute writing-paper week because it is in this week's unit.

If you can point to these learners, this aim, and one named criterion, you are doing what Module 2 Part 2 is probing.