The XXI Century Foreign Language Textbook as a Challenge for Publishers

Abstract

Publishers of textbooks has faced new challenges as a natural consequence of rapid changes in the digital age. Nevertheless, the understanding of a "textbook" by a teacher of a foreign language and a publisher still differs. There is necessity to integrate course series with web applications suggesting adjustments to the usual way of working for publishers. The article deals with creation of the shape of the XXI century foreign language textbook and determination of its characteristics distinguishing an innovative textbook from its traditional model to list services that publishers should be ready to provide to teachers-developers of the technologies in teaching foreign languages in order to jointly create an innovative e-textbook that meets modern reality and trends. The analytical study showed how the concept of e-textbook changed in a chronological order in comparison with the concept of paper textbook. Interactivity, information polymodality and hypertext structure is considered fundamental difference between an e-textbook and its paper counterpart. The authors generalized the services that a modern publisher should be ready to render to teacher-developers and to universities, and formulated the conditions under which the teacher-developer’s readiness to implement digital technologies in making modern e-textbooks can be achieved. It was stated that technological learning platforms should be a kind of integration with publishing platforms at the same time, and the conclusion was made as to how XXI century textbook on a foreign language can be defined.