I think it is indicative of the way EFL/ESL seems to lag behind the rest of the educational world the fact that we still have to use audio and video cassettes instead of CDs (mp3 anyone?) and DVDs when teaching English. Just like the books they accompany the cassettes are stuck in the 80's desperately hoping to ignore the changes that have happened over the last 25 years.
However, I see a ray of hope as more and more of my students are complaining that they can't use the cassettes as they don't have a cassette recorder at home. Maybe, just maybe the publishing companies might cotton on to the fact and start releasing their stuff on CD. Radical thought, huh?
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I turned down a part time gig because the book they used came with cassettes. I explained that I cannot prep at home since I don't have antiquated tech. Response - prep at our school, um no thanks, my computer is set up the way I like it with all of my files there.
Me too, the exact same thing!
it's the schools to blame, not the publishers - any reasonably new course (I'd say less than five years old) comes with CDs, and with some courses only CDs are available now. But the schools don't want to buy CD players!
anonymous,
not exactly true. I've seen books at conferences that only came with cassettes. I'm sure it's some sort of misguided anti-piracy notion to avoid CDs.
Some publishers do have CD's.
In some German books they don't even give cassettes anymore.
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