There were problems and contradictions from the outset
1. ’If it's British, it must be good.'
2. Teachers had never before been confronted with the need or the opportunity to choose a textbook fortheir students.
3. 'We like the book but my learners can't afford it.’
4. 'There's not enough grammar in these books!'
5. Teacher like the book but they are not sure how to use it.
6. The texts in the books are too colloquial but students need texts from the best English writers.
7. The students need specific preparation far university entrance examinations.
The Textbook Scene across the Region Today
For example, In Uzbekistan, learners at school now have a new locally produced series to work with at some levels, but at university level, as in many other areas of the former Soviet Union, students majoring in English are put through the now very long-established course which is traditional and based in views of language and language teaching which Western professionals would almost certainly regard as outmoded.
An Aside: Textbooks as Symbols
Textbooks, traditionally, have acquired almost iconic value both as the visible
'tools of the trade' and as symbols of what is assumed to go on behind classroom doors in the name of education. In Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, as in countries in Europe and South America during and after the 'communicative revolution', swingeing changes in education were put in to place by the authorities with considerable public support but often without any attempt to 'educate' the primary and secondary stakeholders in these reforms.