BAD HABITS

Still on holidays and I dare to talk about teaching. I know it’s another bad habit but a new year has just begun and I cannot unplug my mind from work completely.
I listen to a song, watch a movie or read a story and sometimes I can’t help thinking about how to use it with my students. Anyway, it is not that I am working hard on preparing activities, but it is impossible for me to stop considering the possibilities.
That leads me to another personal dilemma —common among language teachers, I guess: Coursebook or home-made material, that is the question. As far as I am concerned, up-to-date issues must be brought into the classroom in order to authenticate our students’ learning process. Nevertheless, if that is so, why don’t we get rid of coursebooks? I must admit that I work well with both coursebook —especially for grammar— and own material. Also, if we got rid of coursebook, we would have to take into account the anger of publishers, the annoyance of those teachers who aren’t willing to prepare their own material or the reasonable fact that some students get lost if they don’t follow a book. Would that be worth it?
I am sure that every professional looks for the right coursebook and supplementary materials for their course and then tries hard to find the correct balance and make the most of this assemblage. Or that is, at least, what I aim for.
Enough for today. Obviously, I need more than two and a half weeks to really forget what I do for a living.