textbook ideas? mine are c**p!

[DavidJG]

Hello,

I teach High School students conversational Englsih in Thailand (ages 12 to 18) and the textbooks they have are pants!!

I'm lucky that the director of my school has granted me a small budget to buy some new texts, not for all the students, just for me to use for ideas and photocopies etc.

I was thinking of buying 3 books for their levels which are basically beginner, intermediate and upper intermediate.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers, JG

[rusmeister]

Good luck w/high school kids!
Your choices in my experience are - for intermed and up -
"Streetwise"
For beginners you're in trouble. Most texts try to be "cool" or "hip", but have little effective development from ground zero. I would probably try Headway "Starter" by OUP.
Good luck!

[Superhal]

I travel with "Conversation Strategies" by Kehe and Kehe, and I've used it (with modifications) on pure beginners to the most advanced.

Try the Impact! series by Addison-Wesley. They are the most groundbreaking books around, and they come with the listening CD. They are not the easiest to use, however, and they are rather pricey at @25$ a pop. The two conversation books by Day are perfect, imho, for beginners and intermediates. some of the books in the series also comprise 5 levels worth of materials.

For grammar, Grammar Dimensions is the least repulsive I've seen. Each chapter is full of communicative exercises, pictures, etc. and each book is pretty hefty.

Focus on Grammar is not bad. The big plus is that each book can be used for multiple levels. FoG Intro generally covers beginners to intermediates, FoG basic can cover intermediate to low advanced, while the FoG Intermediate is great for advanced learners. In general, one FoG (or Grammar Dimensions) can cover 8 months of instruction.

For advanced learners, I like Passages 2 by Richards (supposedly the next generation of his Interchange books.) It's pure conversation with a depth you just don't see in regular textbooks, and those annoying listening and writing exercises are gone, and the reading and topics are more interesting.