Job Discussion Forums

[Hoser]

I'm looking into picking up a few textbooks (business and general english) for quite high level english. Their conversational ability is excellent, vocabulary not a problem at all (with the exception of idioms/colloquialisms) although they do make the odd grammatical mistakes. If anybody has ever taught in NOVA they'd probably be the equivalent of Level 2 or maybe high 3's. Can anyone suggest some good texts that maybe I could get a Kinokunia?

[Inflames]

Someone will ask this, so I might as well just ask it. What do you want (other than "business and general English") from the textbook? What do you want the students to gain from it? Or is it just for the sake of having a textbook?

[Kootvela]

Advanced students don't need books. You would benefit more from doing different stuff from a range of materials.

[Glenski]

Turn Inflames' question around:

What do the students want?

Some business English (or ESP) textbooks deal with specific lines of work, so you could work off them, but as Kootvela said, if they are truly advanced, you're going to find it difficult to get a matching textbook.

Use realia -- newspaper articles, journal articles, news video, etc. -- to add vocabulary, present idioms and slang, and offer them the chance to increase reading ability and discussion strategies

[fizayded]

I used to pull articles from newspapers or online articles that I thought were interesting, and then create a vocab list, comprehension questions, and other activities. It is nice, but it is definitely plenty of extra work. Plus, your students will begin to expect that, which is fine if you don't mind putting in the extra time.

I also used In the News, which is basically a news article from the new york times with vocab and comprehension activities. This book is quite old though so much of the "news" can seem a bit dated.

I've also used Northstar High Intermediate and Advanced. Both can be a bit dry. Also, I used Headways (the British Edition), and I believe they have a North American edition.

Why not have the students bring in an article that interests them? Better yet, make that their homework and they have to do a presentation on it, and then you can dissect it and discuss it together as a class.

[reasonJP]

Market Leader's a pretty good business series.

[Hoser]

Well they asked me to find a textbook which suits me fine because as you say, it is a lot of extra work. I make my own lessons for my other classes but that's ok because the lessons can be adapted to suit the particular students' levels but with this person, not so much I think. I'm going to head into Kinokunia today and have a look at what they've got.

[Glenski]

Hoser,
Help us to help you. Two of us have asked you pointedly what your students want in a textbook.

[Kootvela]

[Hoser]

[Kootvela]

Then I suggest you cover the vocabulary first and then move onto discussion questions. For example, http://iteslj.org/questions/ is my favourite.

[womblingfree]

I find the new Cutting Edge Advanced student and resources books pretty useful. Plenty for students to get their teeth into. If that's too tough then the Upper-Intermediate books are quite good. If you send me your email I can send you a sample.

I find that advanced students, particularly when it comes to business, often want to study grammar and writing most of all. Many high-level English students are moving into quite heavy discourse analysis and grammar, which is a world away from your average conversation school.

It's good to try to get students to use complicated grammar naturally in discussion before teaching specific rules. Often you find that a student is producing language that, once they try to learn the formal rule, they then fail to use as naturally as they're constantly trying to recall rules which are flexible and may not always apply.

If the student just wants to work through a book at home then First Certificate Masterclass or a Certificate of Advanced English text-book are usually adequate for self-study. I always found Headway to be poorly designed and often contained topics inappropriate for many students, although they're pretty comprehensive in actual language subject matter.

[Kootvela]

I work from Headway. It's been updated recently.

First Certificate Masterclass is a good choice. But I advice they get Teacher's book too, for the answer key.