Job Discussion Forums

john123 · Joined: 29 Jan 2012 Posts: 83

1. Total English (upper intermediate) - great for vocab collocations and readings and ok for intermediate and sometimes advanced students

2. English vocab in use

3. Murphy - Grammar in use

4. English File Advanced

5. Intelligent Business - ok for worldly students

BadBeagleBad · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 6:39 pm Post subject:

I am another fan of Murphy, but I like to take it one step further, after doing the grammar point, then the exercises in the book, right away have a discussion or ask conversation questions to USE the new structure, and then make it a point to keep doing so as often as possible.

I also like Ship or Sheep and Tree or Three for pronunciation.

I like English Vocabulary In Use, and there are some of these for specific professions that are quite good too.

For Business Students, Email English and Telephone English.

And even though it is not a book, I love the Breaking News ESL website.

But, like many others, I only use books perhaps 25% of the time, and only as a jumping off point. I find real materials, such as a novel or a magazine that is of interest to the student, is far more motivating than a text. I wish there were more and better easy readers with topics of interest to adults.

Isla Guapa · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 7:35 pm Post subject:

MotherF · Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 6:10 pm Post subject:

I rarely check grammar books anymore--but did a fair bit when I first started out.

I'm suprised no one has mentioned a go to ready made activity book. There are a lot out there, you know the photocopiable cut-up-able communicative activities. Many were made to go along with set course books and called teacher resource packs, others are stand alone with names like Pronunciation Games, Grammar Games, etc. A good one or handful of these books can make a teacher's life a lot easier.

DebMer · Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 10:12 pm Post subject:

Any particular publisher/author/title you prefer?

riverboat · Joined: 22 May 2009 Posts: 117 Location: Paris, France

RE: Activity books - I like the Watcyn-Jones "Pairwork" series, and also Penguin "Grammar Games & Activities" / "Vocab Games & Activities". That said, I probably only use 5 or 6 activities from each of those books regularly, there's a hell of a lot in them that doesn't work for my lessons for one reason or another.

MotherF · Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 6:30 pm Post subject:

Yeah, my school has twenty or so of these books. The ones I use most are the ones that went allong with course book series we used to use, so I know them well. If I were to ever leave here, I would copy out my favorite activities to take with me, they are "photocopiable" after all. (Psst, you can also find sample of these on the publisher's webpages, or other online sources.)

DebMer · Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:16 pm Post subject:

Denim-Maniac · Joined: 31 Jan 2012 Posts: 1238

I like 'Learning Teaching' for the reasons previously mentioned. Always a nice book to have.

Other than that, I always carry my four copies of Face2Face, (Pre-Int, Int, Upper Int, Advanced) as they are perfectly suited to my employment and I can always find a useful, relevant and interesting lesson for any of my student groups in those books. I dont need a grammar book as they will cover any grammar point Im likely to need, plus give me communicative tasks in order to teach it. Im a big fan I have to say.

Teachers books and CDs are all on my laptop...its just the student books I lug around.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 7:24 am Post subject:

I can second quite a few of the books so far listed (Murphy, Swan, the LDOCE, Thornbury's Natural Grammar, Hollett et al's In at the Deep End, English File), if only because those are the ones I'm more familiar with, but I rarely take such resources with me, as (with the exception of the Hollett, and perhaps also the Thornbury and English File) they are quite often available to buy locally wherever, and/or may be part of any halfway-decent school's library.

Other quite widely-available books that I've enjoyed using, or certainly haven't minded too much, are The New Cambridge English Course, Interchange, and Side by Side - anything that's mainly short dialogue-based, and isn't too text- and "issues"-heavy. I'd advise people to steer clear of anything by Azar (see previous discussions) and get Murphy instead, or perhaps Swan & Walter's How English Works (though the latter may not be quite as suitable as Murphy's Essential/Basic for beginner or elementary levels. Swan & Walter did write a more basic grammar practice book called The Good Grammar Book, but that didn't seem as well laid-out and clear, or as well-illustrated, as Murphy is for these lower levels).

MotherF · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 10:49 pm Post subject:

Fluffy,

For those wishing to understand English grammar, I'm very surprised you didn't mention Micheal Lewis's Classic, The English Verb. A great book, not for explaining grammar to students, but for teachers wishing to understand the system of English grammar.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 11:18 pm Post subject:

Heh, I slipped that in in an edit, MF (whilst unaware of your post). Wink

It's not a book I always take with me (because its range isn't really wide enough - it only deals with verbs, and verb phrases/compound tenses, important though those things admittedly are), but it's then been a book that I've felt I've had to buy more than once (due to my not taking it with me and then wishing I had access to it)! I'm not sure though that every teacher would be up for reading or even really needs to read it, if reasonable potted explanations can be had. (I and others have tried to apply the concept of 'remoteness' as an umbrella term in various JD and TD threads, with mixed success/receptiveness). Which reminds me, I'll need to take a look in The Grammar Book again to see if it does enough justice to Lewis' ideas.

coledavis · Joined: 21 Jun 2003 Posts: 1838

Harmer's 'How ot teach English'. This is good for considering your overall approach to your classroom work.

Parrott - Grammar for English Teachers.

Ruth Wajnryb - Grammar Dictatinn. Also known as dictogloss, this adds comething to your toolkit.

Jill Hadfield - communication games for beginners / dito for elementaries (I've cheated here).

Aitken - teaching tenses

DebMer · Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2012 12:13 am Post subject:

I made a (sloppy) compilation of the recommended books to post here for everybody. I included some relevant notes left by the recommenders. Thanks to all who contributed! I hope to organize the list better at some point.

Most recommended was Murphy's Grammar in Use Int. (7 recs.)
Next came Swan's Practical English Usage (5)
Thornbury's Natural Grammar (2)
1001 Classroom Activities (2)
Peter Watcyn-Jones books (2)
True Stories series (2)
English Vocabulary in Use (2)

Instant IELTS

Murphy's Intermediate

Murphy�s Intermediate

Murphy's Grammar in Use Intermediate

Murphy's grammar.

Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener.

1001 Classroom Activities (lower levels and slower/less confident students)

In Company (business English)

Swan's

A bilingual dictionary

picture dictionary

The ESL Compedium (vocabulary on theme topics)

Murphy

Swan.

any book compiled or edited by Peter Watcyn-Jones (games, instant lessons, fillers, vocab activities etc.)

- any decent dictionary (I use LDOCE)

- Practical English Usage (Swan)

- Natural Grammar (Thornbury)

Natural Grammar

True Stories series by Sandra Heyer (provoke good discussion, and each story comes with tasks such as vocabulary and comprehension, etc.)

True Stories" series,

Oxford Picture Dictionary

"Grammar in Context" series
http://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Context-Sandra-N-Elbaum/dp/1424079012/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327860311&sr=1-5

Focus on Grammar series
http://www.amazon.com/Focus-Grammar-Integrated-Approach-Student/dp/0131899856/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327860197&sr=1-3

Grammar Express is another:
http://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Express-Basic-Answer-Key/dp/0130496677/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327860430&sr=1-1

And, of course there's Azar
http://www.amazon.com/Basic-English-Grammar-Student-Answer/dp/0131849379/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327860610&sr=1-3

- Grammar for elementary students: Essential Grammar In Use
- Grammar for pre-int+ students: Test It, Fix It Verbs & Tenses
- Coursebooks for elem/PI students: International Express Elem and PI
- Coursebook for Int-Upper Int students: Market Leader Intermediate
- Fluency practice: In At The Deep End (sooo old but I find that the approach goes down well with a lot of my students)

"Keep Writing" and "English Please!" by Richard Harrison (could be relevant to Arabs abroad)

Headway series. (Eurocentric)

Murphy

Peter Wyatt-Jones

1001 games

"Tech Talk" by Vicki Hollet for ESP. Elementary - intermediate levels.

1. Total English (upper intermediate) - great for vocab collocations and readings and ok for intermediate and sometimes advanced students

2. English vocab in use

3. Murphy - Grammar in use

4. English File Advanced

5. Intelligent Business - ok for worldly students

Murphy

Ship or Sheep and Tree or Three for pronunciation.

English Vocabulary In Use

For Business Students, Email English and Telephone English.

Breaking News ESL website.

Murphy

Activity books - I like the Watcyn-Jones "Pairwork" series

Penguin "Grammar Games & Activities" / "Vocab Games & Activities"

'Learning Teaching'

Face2Face, (Pre-Int, Int, Upper Int, Advanced)

Murphy
Swan
LDOCE
Thornbury's Natural Grammar
Hollett et al's In at the Deep End, English File
The New Cambridge English Course
Interchange
Side by Side (short dialogue-based)

Chalker & Weiner's Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar
Michael Pearce's Routledge Dictionary of English Language Studies

Collins COBUILD Grammar Patterns 1: Verbs.* (The pinnacle of, and seemingly the last major publication from, the COBUILD project. As it's out of print, it's now available for free online [though rather unhelpfully minus its indexes!] from the University of Birmingham: https://arts-ccr-002.bham.ac.uk/ccr/patgram/ .

Downing & Locke's A University Course in English Grammar. http://linguistlist.org/issues/14/14-67.html ; http://www.atlantisjournal.org/ARCHIVE/29.1/2007Hannay.pdf

Geoffrey Sampson's The Language Instinct Debate.*
Lewis & Hill's Practical Techniques;
Bowen & Marks' Inside Teaching;
Lewis' The English Verb;
Taylor's Cognitive Grammar*;
Lewis' The Lexical Approach;
Carter & McCarthy's Vocabuary and Language Teaching;
Schmitt & McCarthy's Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy*;
Schmitt's Vocabulary in Language Teaching;
Nation's Learning Vocabulary in Another Language; Thornbury & Slade's Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy;
Tsui's English Conversation;
Brazil's A Grammar of Speech;
Crystal's The Fight for English.
CD-ROM Collins COBUILD on CD-ROM* (3rd edn of the Dictionary, plus Thesaurus, Grammar, Usage guide, Wordbank)
Carter & McCarthy's Cambridge Grammar of English CD-ROM.

Micheal Lewis's Classic, The English Verb (for teachers wishing to understand the system of English grammar)

Harmer's 'How to teach English'

Parrott - Grammar for English Teachers.

Ruth Wajnryb - Grammar Dictatinn. Also known as dictogloss, this adds comething to your toolkit.

Jill Hadfield (communication games for beginners)

Aitken - teaching tenses

AGoodStory · Joined: 26 Feb 2010 Posts: 738

Nice work, DebMer! You're hired! Very Happy