Job Discussion Forums

[chhinelo]

Hi All,

I'm looking for recommendations for a textbook to use with a class of special-entrance, false-beginner freshmen uni students who I'll be meeting three times a week next semester (consecutive days, 90 minutes each). I've been searching the forum and other places but I wanted to ask for current opinions.

One function I'm hoping the text will fulfill is reducing my lesson planning time, since I'll also be teaching classes of higher-level students. If the book gives me inspiration for those other classes too, all the better. But I'll only have my special-entrance (they take a warm-up year to make up for low exam scores) students get a copy, because they're the ones who I think will benefit most from more structure.

The course is Oral English. They get listening and writing in other classes. But I wouldn't rule out any book that dealt with those skills too. The directive from the college is pretty much: please try to help them. Some of the books I'm considering from what I've read online are:

--World Link, Susan Stempleski (I've mostly read good things about this but haven't found as much discussion about it as the others)

--New Interchange, Jack C. Richards

--Touchstone, Michael McCarthy

Any opinions on which of these might be most appropriate for my situation? I'm not set on one of those three, and other recommendations are welcome.

General teaching approach suggestions for the class I mentioned are also welcome, if anyone has experience/success/failures with similar groups. I'm new and this semester I only managed to motivate them in very short bursts, with lots of backfires. The feeling I get from administration is that I'm absorbing a known hassle, and they want me to survive.

[Non Sequitur]

I've done the special entrance thing and that number of hours pw will kill you on a number of levels.
Not the least is that you and your students will be heartily sick of each other by the end of the the week.
Make sure the 90 mins is distinctly divided into 2x45 min and do different stuff in the 2nd.
I only know New Interchange and it's useless for the work you will be doing. Horribly biased to US culture too. 'My name is Charles but you can call me Chuck'.
The NI dialogues are so short it will take your students more time to come to the front of the class than to actually read.
So look for extended dialogues of 2/3 mins duration and where each reader gets more or less the same workload.
After you get them confidently reading from text get them to prepare and present their own dialogues with less and less supporting notes.
In the 2nd 45 do things like cocktail party games and similar stuff.
And above all watch your TTT (Teacher Talk Time)

[D-M]

I teach a lot from Face2Face. I think if you teach from a book you also need the other resources too ... by that I mean the teachers book and all the listening tasks. The listening tasks often give the target language in context so you need to do them to set up the framework for the grammar. If you dont have the teachers book you may not know how to teach the grammar ... and so you end up teaching perhaps 40% of the textbook ... which defeats the purpose really!

Im teaching an advanced class of adult learners at the moment using the Face2Face Advanced book ... they are probably the most productive and useful lessons I teach IMHO.

NS - Just 3 x 90 minute lessons a week? That would be bliss for some of us. I have one student who has been in the majority of my classes since April for 5 x 90 minute lessons a week!

[Non Sequitur]

[teenoso]

This sounds a bit of a nightmare - these special entrance classes often mean rich, demotivated and unwilling students. Assume an 18 week semester, and you will need to prepare over 50 lessons......aargh.
One textbook is not going to give you enough material , but whichever you choose needs to be really good. (No specific suggestions, sorry, but not anything written by Chinese teachers!)

I would be careful about regarding them as 'false beginners' since they will have had maybe 6 or 7 years of grammar lessons , and some of their spoken English might be quite good if Mummy and Daddy have paid for cram school or summer camp.
I would wait till you meet them , and do a needs analysis . Textbooks can then be ordered quite quickly (I guess) if your college is switched on.
Also , plan to do lots of varied listening, reading and writing tasks, as well as spoken activities , so you and the kids do not go up the wall with boredom.

If you have been given a licence to teach anything, you could do a 'tour ' of English speaking countries, with readings, songs, cultural activities - one week on US, one week on UK etc; then in other weeks you could choose a theme - travel, sports and exercise, education.
Whatever way you choose , looks like an awful lot of preparation.

[Non Sequitur]

+1
I was able to use the book stuff and the more free flow speaking exercises in both my special entrance classes and my regular (not English major) freshmen classes. This was at a vocational.
As I have a lot of resources accumulated over time for the cocktail and other 2nd 45 activities, planning wasn't a real issue.
The big difference is I saw my specials 3xpw and my regular freshers once.
The specials therefore really consumed resources and as they were a smaller class, a speaking exercise from the book which would take a 40+ fresher class 2x45 min weeks to complete, would be over in less than one 45 min spell.
There were two special entrance classes at my last school and thinking back I should have asked to combine the two for the second 45 as they were on the same timing.
Things like cocktail party games do need a critical mass to get a buzz going.

[D-M]

A Face2Face book would be enough material I think. They normally have 12 units, with 3 or 4 lessons per unit plus review sections. One lesson takes me 3 or 4 x 45 minute periods with small classes .. typically 6 students.

NS - My teaching portfolio contains around 90 lessons. 30 at levels lower intermediate, intermediate and upper-int / advanced. The student I mentioned has been with me through the levels so has pretty much seen most of my 90 lesson portfolio. I am slowly adding to it with perhaps one new lesson created per week ... but teaching from a book is a godsend as it means I dont have to create too much in the way of materials.

Books dont always mean less planning though ... a book may introduce target language that teachers need to brush up on. Teaching from the page can be tough if you arent up to speed with language awareness and grammar structures etc.

[chhinelo]

Thanks for all the help. I'll skip NI and start looking at Face2Face. I'm still curious about World Link if anyone knows it.

[chhinelo]

I've narrowed it down to Face2Face and New Headway now. I think I'll choose Face2Face. But in case anyone has taught with both and has a preference/knowledge of key differences, I thought I'd bring you all in on the decision again.

Thanks again to D-M for making me aware of Face2Face, which seems to be just about exactly what I'm looking for.

[golsa]

[Bud Powell]

"...I'm looking for recommendations for a textbook to use with a class of special-entrance, false-beginner freshmen uni students who I'll be meeting three times a week next semester (consecutive days, 90 minutes each). I've been searching the forum and other places but I wanted to ask for current opinions..."


I don't know what level of proficiency you're talking about. Are these remedial English students or advanced speakers? The terms "special placement" and "false beginner" don't compute.

[muffintop]

It's likely they are kids who did poorly on their Gaokao. Probably the guys who shout 'HAAAAAALLOOOOOO' at you then giggle like girls.

For the sake of the OP...I hope I am wrong.

[toteach]

I was assigned New Interchange and had each class for two 90-minutes periods per week--and there was more than enough material to fill the semester. (You'd even be fine with doing three 90-minute periods per week). Reading, writing, speaking. It even came with a CD, so the listening component was addressed, too.

Personally, I'd purchase a teacher book and a student book and use portions of New Interchange to supplement your other lessons as "filler."

[Non Sequitur]

[Shroob]

I've worked with New English File and I liked that.