Newbie Needs Help - Texts for China (High School)

<b> Forum for the discussion on ESL/EFL textbooks </b>

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astrid203
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Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2004 10:03 pm
Location: Brooklyn, NY

Newbie Needs Help - Texts for China (High School)

Post by astrid203 » Thu Jul 29, 2004 10:05 pm

Help!

Starting in September, I am going to be at Jiujiang Petrochemical School in Jiujiang City in China teaching high school students. I have never taught before and heard from the teachers currently there that they weren't given any books to teach from.

Has anyone else had this experience? Can you give recommendations of good text/lesson books I could buy beforehand and bring with me to guide me through the year?

Thanks in advance!

Sally Olsen
Posts: 1322
Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:24 pm
Location: Canada,France, Brazil, Japan, Mongolia, Greenland, Canada, Mongolia, Ethiopia next

Post by Sally Olsen » Sun Aug 01, 2004 6:26 pm

I remember the hockey bag full of books that I dragged to Mongolia. Good luck. I hope that your school pays for your overweight baggage. If I was doing it again I would take one of many books at the same level. If you have an ESL store in Brooklyn have fun and buy as much as you can or get your teacher friends to donate things. I would try to get enough books so that groups of 4 to 6 could have one book and then compare their book with another group on the same subject and how they "teach" certain topics. They all cover the same topics in various ways and it is interesting to talk about the different approaches with the kids because they all learn different ways. I would take a Thesaurus, a Visual Dictionary, and then visit the movie theatres and get their free promotional literature. Do you know the class sizes? Get a quarter the number for those groups of four. YOu can also visit the comic shops and get promotional free comics with short stories. Get your neighbours to donate flyers as they love to see current products and prices - electronic stuff, clothes, sports equipment, shoes. Take something challenging to read for yourself on teaching so visit your local university and see what appeals. Lonely Planet China too of course. Calendars are great for pictures and the dollar stores have cheap ones. Make up a folder of sample things that you get to read - bus tickets, movie tickets, signs that people would see on the street. If you have a digatel camera make up lessons and walking down your street, driving, taking a bus, going to the store and entertainment - your life basically as seen through their eyes and remember what people say and tape it if possible. Map of the world.
Take your own pens - theirs don't work well and possibly chalk although it is heavy. Tons and tons of stickers for younger kids. Temporary tatooes for a lesson on tatooes. Visit your dollar store and see what they have. There is free stuff in community centers and libraries and automotive agencies and you can get things from your government representative - flags, pins, books about the States. If you have a Canadian friend they can get things from their MPs. Hockey bags are great to take things in and the airlines are generous in not weighing them too carefully sometimes especially if you enthuse about where you are going to teach. You meet lots of nice people who will carry, drag them for you and if not, porters are cheaper. Take anything that you crave - your kind of candy especially. Holiday decorations are fun and some kind of bribe if things are difficult at the beginning - cards of movie characters, sports players.
Playing cards with pictures are good to have - native plants, birds, trees, famous tourist sites. You might want to take a can opener. I never found the kind I liked in Mongolia. Try to arrange an email exchange with teacher friends before you leave and discuss logistics as best you can.

LarryLatham
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Joined: Thu Jan 16, 2003 6:33 pm
Location: Aguanga, California (near San Diego)

Post by LarryLatham » Thu Aug 26, 2004 4:47 pm

Wow!

Astrid203, you couldn't buy better info than this if you had a fistful of money. Pick and choose, though. I wouldn't think Sally had in mind that you should take all of this. You'd have to charter your own plane. :wink:

Larry Latham

Sally Olsen
Posts: 1322
Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:24 pm
Location: Canada,France, Brazil, Japan, Mongolia, Greenland, Canada, Mongolia, Ethiopia next

Post by Sally Olsen » Tue Aug 31, 2004 4:46 pm

I guess I didn't take it all at one go although that hockey bag was super full. Friends can send you care packages at holidays though and you can send yourself boxes that will take 6 months to come so that you have new stuff in January or so. Some companies like Lee Valley Tools will send you free catelogues (those icers for the bottom of your boots were lifesavers in Greenland). Some publishers will send you free stuff too if they think you can order your own books eventually. In Japan we had tons of workshops from publishers with free books available and of course after the JALT conference we just loaded up on books. Perhaps that is a coming field to develop in China. Librarians are always sending off books to different countries through CODE - perhaps you could get on their list.

cstouder
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Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2005 2:34 am
Location: Hunan Province, China
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Did you find good textbooks?

Post by cstouder » Sun Jan 30, 2005 3:35 am

Hello,
I'm a teacher in Hunan, China, and I came across this forum. I'm curious to find out if you ever found useful textbooks for your students? I have taught for a semester with no textbooks, and it's been incredibly tough to come up design my ideas and activities into a coherent curriculum, so I'm textbook hunting for next semester... Let me know what you found!

Sally Olsen
Posts: 1322
Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:24 pm
Location: Canada,France, Brazil, Japan, Mongolia, Greenland, Canada, Mongolia, Ethiopia next

Post by Sally Olsen » Thu Feb 03, 2005 11:46 pm

Seems to me that you have the ideal situation to start your own textbook. I don't think any textbook will cover your situation as well your own ideas and those of the students. It may be difficult but it is so much better to have materials that are made for the students. I guess I would revise my list now that I think about it. I would spend all my money on a digital camera, a good colour printer and a matching laptop. That way I could print the stories that the student write, print the activities that they design to go with their stories (puzzles, questions, and so on) and share these among the students. They can read what they wrote and tell others what they wrote and explain it so much better with translation. Their stories are so much more interesting to other students and you don't run into cultural difficulties like trying to explain what a dishwasher is and does as you will find in Side By Side for example. Longman, Oxford and Cambridge have developed books for the Chinese markets.

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