Job Discussion Forums

[no_exit]

I asked a question awhile back about middle school textbooks. The advice I got was pretty helpful. I ended up deciding on a series called Postcards, which I liked for its fairly modern vocabulary, color photos, and topics that will engage young teens (conversations like "Do you like hip-hop music? No, I don't, I like pop" etc). As much as I do like New Interchange, I wanted to choose something designed specifically for that age group.

Now I've got a choice for Kindergarten and primary school textbooks. I'm getting books through Pearson Education, so I was wondering if anyone has experience using these three series'

Gogo Loves English
Welcome to English
New English Parade

The only one I've used personally is New English Parade, which is suitable for Grade 1 and up, and a pretty good book for that age level. I'm familiar with Gogo Loves English, but I've mostly seen it used for Kindergarten around here. Took a look at the website and there seemed to be a good bit of writing/phonics stuff, which I like. Anyone with first hand experience know what age groups would most benefit from the above series'? I will probably choose two of the above three, so if you had to choose a kindergarten text and a primary school text, which of these (or any other Longman/Pearson publications) would you go with?

[Super Frank]

All I can offer is that I can't stand New English Parade, I'd rather try something else anyday.

[vikdk]

a text book for a kindergarten kid - what will they think of next
the McCrap schools love these kind of books cause the parents buy them - and a bit more profit is generated. On very rare occasions teachers like these books since they may be able to give a few lesson ideas, and help show the parent what is being taught and how they can help their kids practice at home - but mostly they despise them because of the pedagogical McCrap they symbolise - and most of 'em aint worth the paper they're printed on anyways. But the kids - do you ever tell 4 year olds to open their textbooks at page 21 and start reading from the top of the page. At best books can be used together with audio-visual type teaching so they associate pictures in the book with the words or phrases (a real yawwwwwwwwwwwn way of teaching), but getting a group of 4 years to be concentrated or motivated enough to do that can be pretty difficult. Nawwww maybe I'm old fashioned - but text books for kindy kids comes a long second after teacher initiated activities which trigger child initiated learning situations - you know games and tasks, stories and songs, which have that kind of fun element which realy motivate a child into wanting to learn - in these kind of situations the small child can best utalise the text book by using it as emergency toilet paper - or even better to make paper airplanes, since then the book is put to an active use rather than a, shut-up and look at the pictures for the 100th time while being sent to sleep by the acompanying DVD, pacifier.

By the way - text-books for kindy kids is a typical McCrap school policy - money money money - persuade the parents that we are teaching experts and the book is a scientificaly designed teaching product - that's the game

[Roger]

I am right now helping select text books and reference materials for a shop to take on stock; the following suppliers sell to China:
- Longman;
- Pearson-Longman (not identical with the above: Longman
also publishes inside China!);
- OUP;
- Thomson Learning (elt.thomson.com), producer of the
popular TAPESTRY series;
- Macmillan (www.macmillanenglish.comj)
- Cambridge (www.cambridge.org/elt
- Ladybird (www.ladybird.com

I am listing these publishers because you cannot find any catalogues in the mainland except from the distributors or from the importers in Hong Kong. You must visit their websites...good luck!

Anyway, I have some Pearson-Longman materials (not for kindy, though) and must say they are outstandingly good! They also fetch a price though that you will have to pay if you want to own them!

As a piece of personal advice, I also find it questionable to use textbooks with kids this age (remember in kindergartens they do not learn how to read and write...!). You should therefore opt for pictorials or, ideally, for FLASHCARDS.

[no_exit]

Whatever.

I asked for help choosing textbooks, not another tirade about EF. This has absolutely nothing to do with your little vendettas against "McCrap." Creative, by the way. Railing against corporations by comparing them to McDonalds. Never seen that one before.

Students need to learn from something. If they're five years old, they're old enough to start on reading and writing. They need to practice at home and lord knows their parents can't teach them anything, spoken, written, or otherwise. If they have English class with a foreign teacher say, once a week, how do you expect them to review and reinforce what they know without any materials? And sometimes, just sometimes, there are activities in the books that the kids actually *gasp* LIKE. Whoever said that books had to be opened and recited in class, and that having books means no songs, games, etc? I think that kids of all ages need something to work from, something to reinforce what they're learning in school when they go home, and that it needs to be age appropriate and standardized for the whole class. So sue me, I'm such a McTeacher.

Again. Whatever.

vikdk, sorry, I think you just want to flame me for ever sticking up for EF. Could you please get past what is obviously a very dear topic to you, just for a second? Adding smiley faces and all that doesn't make your posts come across any less hostile, ya know? Seriously. You're not even interested in an actual discussion about the merits of using textbooks or not, you're just interested in smearing chain schools. Take it back to the other thread. Please.

Edited to add, thanks Roger, for the thoughtful advice. Again, of course I plan on using flashcards and songs and whatnot. I've been teaching kindergarten and primary school for quite a few years now, and I think there is some merit in giving them something to work from. Often we don't touch the books in class (ESPECIALLY in Kindy classes, of course, but remember, I asked about primary school too, and primary kids need a book, I'm not budging on that one), but they have them and can look at them at home with their parents. Occasionally we'll take them out and do an activity. Classes are fairly long and there is time for all of it. It isn't an all or nothing approach. Even if the books are more for the parents benefit than the kids, it has worked for me.

I'm using books that are published abroad, by the way, ordering through the Shanghai office of Pearson. I'm quite impressed with what I've seen, some of the books are quite child-centered and offer a lot more than the old match the picture with the word.

[vikdk]

Great kindy text books are those with blank pages, lots of colored pencils and a kindy teacher who's prepaired to sit, draw and talk with the kids - of course this long tested pedagogical method doesn't sit well with the McCrap type teaching experts, since such text books don't generate enough profit!!!!!

[vikdk]

[Voldermort]

I am also looking for textbooks. Suitable for high school senior grade 1. The book shop in my city is pretty pathetic when it comes to English. I will be visiting Chengdu soon. So if anybody could give a list of suitable books, I hope to be able to get hold of copies there.

[Shan-Shan]

Though it was a whole other life time ago -- H.H. nights in It'aewon, and soju blurred weekends -- I do recall having used a series called "Tiny Tots" for a group of four year olds I had in Korea. The books were full of pictures, as one would expect, and came in pairs: the "coursebook" featured the teddy bear and his humanoid friend encountering many simple mysteries of life (plants, animals, numbers, explainations for how a plush toy became animiated); the workbook had colouring, much tracing of letters/words, stickers, and exercises used in tandem with flashcards. Songs were a major component of the series as well, though the four year olds refused to sing with me. Even at such a young age, music appreciation was something they had already learned.

I dimly recall feeling blessed when the director assigned a page or two from Tiny Tots; such a memory leads me to believe that the series was quite decent. It was far better than the "What's that, Mom?" book, a collection of pirated pictures without any themes between them. On several occasions, I was assigned the "bar of soap" picture for a thirty minute class with the four year olds. Utter shambles.

Anyhow, that was all during my irresponsible, fresh out of university, getting loaded with an assortment of questionable ladies every opportunity I had days in Seoul.

My views on TESL, and lifestyle, have changed radically since my English teaching initiation in South Korea.

[vikdk]

Shan-Shan after that wonderfull account I do hope our friend no-exit is scouring the catacombs of educational classics for his edition of Tiny tots - and if he indeed finds, his director will surely be a happy man since their is nothing like the pulling power of a humanoid (if only he could drop that tiresome teddy fellow) to swell the crowds (and the profits) of those small kiddy classes. With this in mind I think I'll go one step further and polish-up on my best extra-terestrial English teaching techniques - a lesson on how to vapourise an unfriendly alien will realy impress my young crowd - after all we must keep up with the latest educational trends

[Shan-Shan]

Scour he may well have to do, search every crook and nanny of the ESL world who still might be in possession of a Tiny Tot. The students I had those many years ago would be assigned the first text when they arrived at the school, and in about half a year they would finish all four/five/six (or however many) of the series. The result? At mid year, the school had the parents buy the first, second, third, etc., in the series again for "review" at home and in class as the original copies already had contorted and painfully constructed ABCs scrawled throughout them. The Tiny Tot cycle was then born! Still, aside from any "profits" that might have been made, the real benefit of the repurchasing was for the students. I'm sure that they were more than happy to view their progress:

"My lord, mother, did you see how I crafted my H's last spring? What in the devil was I ever thinking! Thankfully my lines and curves now have some proportion to them!"

[The_Prodiigy]

GoGo Loves English - highly recommended at all levels.

[latefordinner]

I'm NOT going to get involved in a discussion about THE correct age for children to learn reading and writing skills. Vikdk, you and I have obviously different ideas here. Well maybe another thread, but not now.
What I will note is that Vikdk and Roger, two people who rarely agree, have posted thus:
V:

[latefordinner]

Forgot to add something important. Our youngest children in that program were 5 , most of the 1As were 6 and one or two 7. The higher classes respectively older, with an increasing (and at times serious) age overlap at the higher end. BTAS.

[no_exit]

I'm a she, by the way, not a he. And your bit about me pleasing my director made me laugh. I don't even have a director. Any "profits" I might make off of these books (ordered from abroad at a pretty nasty cost) will be minimal at best, as I'm not into bleeding my students dry for textbooks, I just want them to have a good, solid source of material for learning and review.

Anyhow, why do they need to practice at home? Maybe so they don't forget everything they learned and have to learn it all over again next class? Or do you think that teaching kids English just means entertaining them in English, and not actually teaching them anything? I challenge you to teach a class of four or five year olds for an hour or two a week and give them absolutely no at home practice (never mind that the parents would have your head for not assigning homework in the first place -- how do you deal with parents who complain to no end when the teacher doesn't assign homework, tell them to shove it? ), and see what they remember the next week.

And as for reading, I learned how to read when I was four. While certain Northern European countries may do things their way, I don't believe it is in any way innapropriate for kindergarten children to start learning the basics of reading and writing while they are still in the sensitive period for developing language skills. Of course, you'll probably construe this to mean that I advocate making four year olds tediously copy words for hours on end. Whatever floats your boat or fits your agenda vikdk. It seems pretty obvious to me that you have nothing useful to contribute about textbooks, and this is just yet another opportunity for you to take shots against what you percieve to be some great injustice in the EFL world. Crusade on.

I think I'm going with Gogo Loves English, by the way. The samples I saw look great, and the material is very child friendly, colorful, with dialogues, pictures, games and activities. If anyone cares, there's a companion website for the series out there, so you can make your own judgements as to whether I'm harming my students by giving them books.