Job Discussion Forums

[Non Sequitur]

I'm interested in what FTs have found to be the best teaching resource they've used and where did you get it?

[Legeril]

I vote for my brain

[The Ever-changing Cleric]

[Ariadne]

Just as others have mentioned, I think I'm a pretty good resource. I would say the internet is the next best resource. I've never had a text book that really wowed me or my students. Hard copy pictures from magazines and newspapers are great for many lessons.

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[nickpellatt]

I havent voted in the poll as my answer is a bit of both really.

I was given New Interchange in a college and at a training centre for adults. I have the Passages 4 book with me back home in England. These books get a bad rap but I think they are pretty good, especially the Passages books. I have heard people say 'they aren't suitable or interesting enough for my Uni classes' BUT ... I use them now for two private Chinese students I have, both of whom are doing MA degrees here in the UK. I also teach English online to Japanese adults, and this book works well with them too! Really good resource, often overlooked IMO.

I also borrowed Face2Face books from a colleague in my last China job. I love these books as well, and have since bought student books for pre-int/int/upper int and advanced. They are expensive, but provide a really nice balance between skills, and present grammar in a really good way. I like these a lot!

Two other resources I can recommend enough are print and teach lessons that can be found in the TEFL section of the UK newspaper, The Guardian. These are graded as advanced or pre-int, and with nothing more than an email address, can be downloaded and/or printed. Nice topical lessons that I have used with minimal changes to good effect.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/series/classroom-materials

My last resource, is a website called English 4U. This website is a subscription site full of print and teach worksheets on current topics, some lessons are based around music, and they also have seperate print and teach sheets for language and grammar points. I have downloaded about 450 worksheets from this site. I think they charge about $17 for a one off 6 month subscription. Not good for kids or elementary learners tho
http://www.english-4u.com/

Those resources are enough to teach hundreds of classes TBH. With somme of this material I am confident that I could walk into pretty much any class of pre-int and above and deliver a decent lesson that is enjoyable for both me and the students, and gives them a chance to learn something, or practise an english skill.

All are suitable for print and teach - although I do recommend you still make a lesson plan to ensure the material is suitable for your class, and activities are planned accordingly.

Regarding my brain .. I think given time in the classroom, my brain is the best brain for knowing my students, but I reckon the people who write material for major publishers and other sources have better brains to put material together. It is what they do after all, and have a lot more experience than I have. I take their skills at producing materials and combine these with my skills and knowledge of my students. Hopefully a good lesson comes out the other end.

PS - please use the links I posted, let me know what you think of them. There are a few free lessons to try on English 4U, and check out the Guardian ones too.

I do hope that if I end up working with any of you guys you will remember how nice I was to show you these links, and let me have first dibs on them in shared classrooms!