Three Reasons Why We Shouldn’t Be Using Textbooks in the College Classroom

After 25 years teaching Spanish and working with textbooks, I have come to realize that we should do away with them. While I think it is better to have a textbook than nothing at all, I will share some of my own reasons against the use of textbooks.

Three Reasons Why Not to Use Textbooks

Reason #4: Textbooks are heavy!

Textbooks are Boring

The main reason is that they are dry pages of information, while a language is dynamic and alive. At this point, when I have to use a textbook, I use it as a guide for what material needs to be covered. I would rather come up with my own activities. Occasionally, I will use some activities (often modified by me).

Outdated Information

It is impossible to update the information on a textbook. I remember a cultural section that talked about Maradona, after he had been retired for many years. Most of my students did not even know who he was. Luckily, I knew this would happen and I changed the focus of the lesson to Messi, when he was still very popular. If I had to do that lesson again about soccer, it would only be appropriate to talk about Mbappé or Haaland, for instance. Some students are more likely to know them. If not, these are relevant world-famous players that people are talking about, so it would make sense to bring them up.

Waste of Money

Last but not least, textbooks are expensive! Having to buy textbooks year after year is very expensive, even if they are second-hand. I have had the experience to work with an online platform on which we wrote and updated all the content whenever it made sense. It turned out to be a much more satisfactory experience for both students and language instructors, and it was also cheaper for students to access it than buying textbooks.

I would like to hear your reactions to this post. How do you feel about textbooks? Do you use textbooks in your classroom? Have you worked with an online platform?