Teacher Discussion Forums

[sbourque]

I´m using this series and have noticed that it's not really all that "American", i.e. whenever prices are mentioned or shown they're in pounds sterling. Other Britspeak sneaks in from time to time as well, and the American accents on the tape sound a bit "off". Since I'm teaching in Mexico, and most of my students spend time in the U.S. and/or Canada, I'd be interested in learning about American English texts for college students. My usual area is Business English, and my prior teaching has been in Europe (=British focused materials) so I'm not that familiar with general English texts.

[rusmeister]

Unfortunately, America has no cutting edge in ESL. I had to teach abroad for years, then in the States to learn this.
Eventually I was forced to admit that Brit materials are far superior across the board. When I tried to order them in the US, I was denied by Oxford U. Press in the States, citing "marketing restrictions". Basically, US publishers have a kind of protectionism going that ensures the sales of US-published texts in the US. The flip side is, they learn nothing from ESL pedagogy experience in the rest of the world.

We are as far behind the Brits in ESL as China is behind us in space rocketry.