Teacher Discussion Forums

[Chercheuse]

Hi. I'm teaching VESL to a beginning-high beginning-low intermediate mix of Spanish-speaking maintenance workers. I create my own workplace- related materials, which we use as the basis of class activities, but, since the employer is willing to spend a little, I'd like to recommend that they buy some good general ESL books for the students.

Here's what I'm looking for:

1. Spanish-English ESL textbooks for self/home study.
By Spanish-English, I mean either a) instructions and some presentation in Spanish and/or b) materials written in English but directed toward areas of interest for Spanish speakers.
Any area of ESL (grammar, pronunciation, literacy, mixed skills, etc.) is fine, but preferably not a video based course, as I imagine the employer will not want to spend that much.

2. Spanish-English ESL textbooks for class use. Again any area of ESL is helpful.

I don't speak Spanish and have never in my teaching career used anything but English-only materials. I'm happy with this approach, but I'd like to find out if there are any good Spanish-oriented ESL texts I could offer the students to supplement my materials.

Thanks for any recommendations!

[Alexanndra]

Try altaesl.com or amazon.com for ideas. I haven't used any books like the ones you mention, but I bet there a lot of them out there!

Anyone else have more specific advice?

[abigail]

I have also been hunting for the perfect EFL series for Spanish speakers, but to no avail. I teach English to a range of students from absolute beginners to advanced at a non-profit org in Costa Rica. They are all native Spanish speakers. We've been using the Headway series which is pretty good, but it's not ideal for our purposes since it is decidedly Euro-centric (if not UK-centric) and English only. A more latin-american focussed series with directions/explanations in Spanish (at least at the absolute beginner level) would be much better. So... if anyone knows of a series that fits the bill, I'm all ears!

[kannesee]

"Ingles Para Latinos" and "El Ingles Necesario Para Vivir y Trabajar en los Estados Unidos" are both very good books for students to use to study at home.