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talentedcrayon
Joined: 19 Mar 2013
Posts: 91
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 Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2015 11:20 am Post subject: Textbook for teaching speaking? |
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Hello,
I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for a good textbook that is focused primarily on speaking & conversation (university students).
I am looking for something that is activity based, multi-level and age appropriate. |
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toteach
Joined: 29 Dec 2008
Posts: 273
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| Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2015 11:41 am Post subject: |
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| A text I used at two universities was "New Interchange." It's leveled and decent for some classroom work, but I could never rely on it for the whole class because there were few engaging activities. Age appropriate? Generally. |
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talentedcrayon
Joined: 19 Mar 2013
Posts: 91
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| Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2015 11:53 am Post subject: |
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| Thanks Toteach, I'll check it out. |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2015 6:41 pm Post subject: |
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New Interchange has lots of culturally biased artwork and dialogues but little substance.
Because it tries to cover many aspects of English and not just speaking, the bit to miss out is dialogues. These are so short it takes the students longer to extricate themselves from their desks and come to the front, than it does to read the piece.
Anyone who thinks Chinese students will speak English in small group work is delusional. |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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joey2001
Joined: 26 Oct 2006
Posts: 697
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 4:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| New Interchange has lots of culturally biased artwork and dialogues but little substance. |
In what way "culturally biased"? I have never been 100% happy with New Interchange, but never found a better textbook in China. I find lots of the conversations forced or unnatural, but came back to using it in the end, unable to find better material. Pretty much everything else was way worse. Hasn't the title of the series been changed to "Interchange" years ago? I started at a training center that used that old "Side by Side" in all adult classes. For some reason students liked it, though I absolutely hated it. I was happy when the school adopted "New Interchange" instead, a big step ahead from "Side by Side" but by no means perfect. So other than downloading stuff or making your own, what textbook series is the best in China these days?
NI definitely has very little substance, wastes too much space on those "cool" or "cute" sketches. I found lots of the stuff dated even when I started using it. |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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| joey2001 wrote: |
| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| New Interchange has lots of culturally biased artwork and dialogues but little substance. |
In what way "culturally biased"? I have never been 100% happy with New Interchange, but never found a better textbook in China. I find lots of the conversations forced or unnatural, but came back to using it in the end, unable to find better material. Pretty much everything else was way worse. Hasn't the title of the series been changed to "Interchange" years ago? I started at a training center that used that old "Side by Side" in all adult classes. For some reason students liked it, though I absolutely hated it. I was happy when the school adopted "New Interchange" instead, a big step ahead from "Side by Side" but by no means perfect. So other than downloading stuff or making your own, what textbook series is the best in China these days?
NI definitely has very little substance, wastes too much space on those "cool" or "cute" sketches. I found lots of the stuff dated even when I started using it. |
I think you answered your own question.
'cool' and 'cute' sketches.
And from the red book
'My name is Charles but you can call me Chuck'\
Barfffff!!!! |
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maxand
Joined: 04 Jan 2012
Posts: 318
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| joey2001 wrote: |
| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| New Interchange has lots of culturally biased artwork and dialogues but little substance. |
In what way "culturally biased"? I have never been 100% happy with New Interchange, but never found a better textbook in China. I find lots of the conversations forced or unnatural, but came back to using it in the end, unable to find better material. Pretty much everything else was way worse. Hasn't the title of the series been changed to "Interchange" years ago? I started at a training center that used that old "Side by Side" in all adult classes. For some reason students liked it, though I absolutely hated it. I was happy when the school adopted "New Interchange" instead, a big step ahead from "Side by Side" but by no means perfect. So other than downloading stuff or making your own, what textbook series is the best in China these days?
NI definitely has very little substance, wastes too much space on those "cool" or "cute" sketches. I found lots of the stuff dated even when I started using it. |
I think you answered your own question.
'cool' and 'cute' sketches.
And from the red book
'My name is Charles but you can call me Chuck'\
Barfffff!!!! |
easy there, NS 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtsfMDQpel0 |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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| maxand wrote: |
| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| joey2001 wrote: |
| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| New Interchange has lots of culturally biased artwork and dialogues but little substance. |
In what way "culturally biased"? I have never been 100% happy with New Interchange, but never found a better textbook in China. I find lots of the conversations forced or unnatural, but came back to using it in the end, unable to find better material. Pretty much everything else was way worse. Hasn't the title of the series been changed to "Interchange" years ago? I started at a training center that used that old "Side by Side" in all adult classes. For some reason students liked it, though I absolutely hated it. I was happy when the school adopted "New Interchange" instead, a big step ahead from "Side by Side" but by no means perfect. So other than downloading stuff or making your own, what textbook series is the best in China these days?
NI definitely has very little substance, wastes too much space on those "cool" or "cute" sketches. I found lots of the stuff dated even when I started using it. |
I think you answered your own question.
'cool' and 'cute' sketches.
And from the red book
'My name is Charles but you can call me Chuck'\
Barfffff!!!! |
easy there, NS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtsfMDQpel0 |
OK OK maybe not barfing - will you accept 'queasy-making'? |
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maxand
Joined: 04 Jan 2012
Posts: 318
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 7:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| maxand wrote: |
| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| joey2001 wrote: |
| Non Sequitur wrote: |
| New Interchange has lots of culturally biased artwork and dialogues but little substance. |
In what way "culturally biased"? I have never been 100% happy with New Interchange, but never found a better textbook in China. I find lots of the conversations forced or unnatural, but came back to using it in the end, unable to find better material. Pretty much everything else was way worse. Hasn't the title of the series been changed to "Interchange" years ago? I started at a training center that used that old "Side by Side" in all adult classes. For some reason students liked it, though I absolutely hated it. I was happy when the school adopted "New Interchange" instead, a big step ahead from "Side by Side" but by no means perfect. So other than downloading stuff or making your own, what textbook series is the best in China these days?
NI definitely has very little substance, wastes too much space on those "cool" or "cute" sketches. I found lots of the stuff dated even when I started using it. |
I think you answered your own question.
'cool' and 'cute' sketches.
And from the red book
'My name is Charles but you can call me Chuck'\
Barfffff!!!! |
easy there, NS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtsfMDQpel0 |
OK OK maybe not barfing - will you accept 'queasy-making'? |
accepted |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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So the problem of no adequate resource for Oral English remains.
A prolific poster PMd me and in his view the copyright issues in China put publishers off. |
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joey2001
Joined: 26 Oct 2006
Posts: 697
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 8:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Non Sequitur wrote: |
I think you answered your own question.
'cool' and 'cute' sketches.
And from the red book
'My name is Charles but you can call me Chuck'\
Barfffff!!!! |
Yeah, I remember that particular dialog. Pretty lame. What I liked about those books however was that at least there was some kind of system to it, tests every 4 lessons or so, accompanying audio and video material, workbooks,... All that other crap in China was so much more inferior, so using NI was a matter of choosing the lesser evil. Those books do have their merit in a classroom situation, as you can do lots of interactive stuff based on those over-simplified conversation in the books. I often used it as a starting point to get the students talking, most of the time about completely different topics, which was the way I wanted it. Getting them to speak up, on whatever topic, was enough for me. Most students got the point, picked up on phrases in the book but did not limit the discussion to those topics. So, in a classroom with more or less active students, NI is not completely crap. I made the mistake of using it for smaller, even one-on-one classes, sometimes more or less successfully sometimes total disasters. So... I repeat, is there any halfway teachable English textbook available in China? Could some even be used for online classes via audio chats on QQ? |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 9:28 pm Post subject: |
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As I never have less than 50 students, I want to process them through an exercise at a fair pace.
I use my own dialogues with two and sometimes three characters.
For online teaching I guess you'd want a two person dialogue and in class I find 3 is almost more than I can handle as I'm marking at the same time.
Go to a big Tsinghua (sp) with plenty of textbooks and have a look.
Whether you can get your school to invest is moot.
One Chinese book I used was wall-to-wall dialogues and no pretty pictures.
Trouble was the author was more interested in plot than the speaking exercise.
In 3-person dialogues (say A and B meeting C at the airport) B's character would only feature in half the text which left that student standing like a big dork until the others finished their little chat |
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talentedcrayon
Joined: 19 Mar 2013
Posts: 91
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| Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2015 6:24 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the answers.
I am not the only one it seems that has trouble finding a good text. I've spent some time looking. I think I will just supplement a more general English textbook with my own speaking activities (that's what I've been doing all along anyway.) |
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toteach
Joined: 29 Dec 2008
Posts: 273
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| Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2015 12:42 pm Post subject: |
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| One that I'm using now in a middle school setting is Let's Go. It's also leveled with lots of CDs etc. for flash. There is a big grammar component to it. |
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