What are THE BEST books for teaching english as a foreign language?
joanna_jaunts asked:
I am looking for ways of teaching that are less theory and more about how to really speak english, but at the same time not banal and ridiculous as language books can be. Please, only answers from experience.
As it obviously wasn’t clear, from my question - I am a british, native-english speaker.
I have learned to speak several languages myself, through living in different countries, and pretty much teaching myself. I have attended language classes that haven’t helped me, and some that have.
I am educated and am a teacher.
In asking my question here and not on the ESOL website, because I am wanting to expand my knowledge of what is available to as teaching tool, from people who have taught or learned english as a foreign or second language, in order for me to better serve my students.
That is why I ask for answers from experience.
Please no answers laden with chips on shoulders or axes to grind.
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I am looking for ways of teaching that are less theory and more about how to really speak english, but at the same time not banal and ridiculous as language books can be. Please, only answers from experience.
As it obviously wasn’t clear, from my question - I am a british, native-english speaker.
I have learned to speak several languages myself, through living in different countries, and pretty much teaching myself. I have attended language classes that haven’t helped me, and some that have.
I am educated and am a teacher.
In asking my question here and not on the ESOL website, because I am wanting to expand my knowledge of what is available to as teaching tool, from people who have taught or learned english as a foreign or second language, in order for me to better serve my students.
That is why I ask for answers from experience.
Please no answers laden with chips on shoulders or axes to grind.
January 4th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Dr. Suess books because they have simple words that are good for forming sentences. metaphoricwolf
January 6th, 2010 at 5:48 am
This will depend a lot on what level you’re teaching. Personally, I make use of grammar books with pictures - so I can briefly explain (e.g. ‘past perfect - action is finished, and use past participle) I can give students a list of verbs (v1,v2,v3 such as ‘drive, drove, have driven’) and then flash pictures and ask questions.
My favourite for doing this at the moment are Raymond Murphy grammar books - I use the first and second from basic to intermediate. For general conversation, as I’m British I use an American book - Interchange - for which the CD’s are expensive, but it’s very good for listening skills if you follow the teacher book. Really you have to develop a style (ask questions, play CD - but don’t let students answer until you ask them).
For children, I love ‘Magic Time’ in which every unit has a lexical set, ten good pictures easily scanned and printed as A4 flashcards - simple sentence structures, and three songs per unit on CD.
Now I can use any book with pictures and sentence patterns - teaching children, I make them run and hit pictures with a plastic hammer - for adults, I use a familiar picture group (I have about 15 pictures - a photographer in the bath, a teacher watching TV etc. Questions for you to ask ‘what does he do? What is he doing? What did he do last week? What is he doing in the picture? What was he doing when I took the picture?)
Let them take grammar from your questions, and use their brain to apply it in a way that it relates to the pictures.
1. Drill vocab (listen/repeat) 2. elicit with a game 3. practice sentence (q/a structure) 4. don’t forget to allow some free talking about the pictures with no restrictions on grammar etc.
hope you can make use of this. I use this basic idea with limousine drivers, working for a businessman in Bangkok who put me on hold after three months, and tried out all of the major language institutes that could put a course together and send out their best teachers.
After that, he called me back - and stopped wasting his money. He pays me roughly double the going rate.
I would like to add (in response to the one other rather offensive answer here) that in the places I worked amongst ‘professional teachers’ including International schools that recruit very experienced teachers from abroad - these teachers were very impressed, very suprised at my ability to make a group of strangers form a group and learn for a 7 week summer course. They wished to observe and learn.
I am not a qualified teacher, I simply have talent and no degree. I work amongst professionals who admire me for my ability and ask me for my ideas and help. Seamonkey