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mondrian · Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 12:44 pm Post subject: Help with a new course

My Dean, in his infinite wisdom, has just given two of us FTs each 25 students, who are the "top students in the University", for a ten week course of intensive practice in communicative English (4 hours a week study).
He has given us the text book:
Family Album USA by Beckermann, published in 1990 AND the DVDs to go with it. It is an honour for us to have the multimedia lab to use and we should feel very priviliged teachers.
We start teaching in 10 days time.
I have glanced through the text and frankly it leaves a LOT to be desired. BTW I am English not American!
So.................. has anyone else here used this book, and what do they recommend I do...... other than have a public book burning ceremony?
I need help, not sympathy!

Shan-Shan · Joined: 28 Aug 2003 Posts: 1074 Location: electric pastures

The book I was asked to use this semester is mostly useless for speaking classes. What I've done is design lesson plans "around" the themes of various units in the text, occasionally borrowing vocabulary/grammar features to be used in form-focused lessons before more communicative activities ensue.

I could design the linguistic focus lessons without the text, but feel that occasional reference to "the book" is needed to help me look "real". After all, the other teachers at the school read from the book, and are called "educators" for doing so.

Yu · Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 1219 Location: Shanghai

I hope you are getting paid for this "honor"

james s · Joined: 07 Feb 2007 Posts: 676 Location: Raincity

eslstudies · Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 1061 Location: East of Aden

I've known better Chinese English teachers to use this text. Yes, it did give them access to the media room, it was an easy ride for all involved, and the kids enjoyed the class.
It may make you wince, but go with the flow, in this case at least!

mjlpsu · Joined: 03 Oct 2005 Posts: 128 Location: NJ to Shenzhen

Does the multimedia lab have internet access? I sure hope it does. It'll make it much easier for you to find some resources for the students to use that are loosely connected to the book.
I definitely agree with Shan-Shan, work around the book. Use it as a loose guide and come up with other materials.

Henry_Cowell · Joined: 27 May 2005 Posts: 3352 Location: Berkeley

Four hours a week = intensive???

Rolling Eyes

Steppenwolf · Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 1769

Actually, I consider FAMILY ALBUM a grteat and enthralling piece; if you find it leaves "a lot to desire" you should tell what it is you consider to be amiss.

I consider it great because it puts a few negative biases our students hold upside down.

It also is really entertaining. I used it in a normal school and practially all the girls there loved it.

Now as for practical tips: refrain from using a bilingual version (there are monolingual ones and bilingual ones).

You could use the VCD alone and ask them to make up the dialogues or to guess at the dialogues. Then you can let them know what's been actually said.

Some of the language drills I consider obsolete or unuseful. What the student needs to learn he or she alone should find, or if they cannot find it their teacher could point them to the language gems such as colloquialisms.

englishgibson · Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 4345

mondrian · Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 3:06 am Post subject:

mondrian · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 4:00 am Post subject:

Well I have now done the first week of the ten that are allocated for this course.
35 students (10 more than the Department said I would have!); and a multimedia lab that was locked so someone had to go and find the key. Then I had to find out how to switch it all on. The students did not want to use the individual headphones, they wanted to hear the dialogues through the loud speaker system. No one could do the switching so headphones it was. Of course not all the headphones worked and a couple of seats were broken. Then I found that there was no Internet in this lab. So that part of the lesson plan went out of the window.
As I discussed the proposed scheme with the students, I discovered that they did NOT want to do any of the exercises in the books as they ALSO had a Chinese English teacher to do that and go through the finer points of grammar and vocabulary with them. I was unaware of this AND that they had another book to go with the course.
At this point I realised that once more I was the;"foreign icing on another English scam".
So we watched and listened to the first Episode. Then I got them to discuss what had happened. It was useless to discuss what would happen next as they already knew from their lesson with the Chinese English teacher. Then I gave them some role play exercises. The problem with the Acts in the Episode is that there are varying numbers of characters in each section; so I had to keep on re-arranging the group numbers to fit the action.
Although they were supposed to be the "top students", I found that they had no idea whatever on how to pronounce unseen new names, such as "Staten island, Riverdale and J.F. Kennedy".
An interesting week, but one which I could have well done without!

kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

mondrian · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 10:40 am Post subject:

tw · Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 3898

I am to begin teaching two groups of 32 students using this text book starting next week. I meet each group once a week, and I think I have to finish teaching this book in 12 weeks, with week 12 being the week I am supposed to leave China.

zazm · Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 150

What is the level of the students?
Are they capable of doing pair/ group work with little or no supervision?
Also, if you are using a book that talks about a culture other than your own, you can use the compare/ contrast method of teaching..

IE-
"In the US, they do *this* a certain way, but where I'm from in the UK, we do *it* that way."

Depending on their speaking level, give them some handouts that are related to the material in the book, then make some handouts that show the different way it is done in the UK, using British vocabulary and terms....

The students learn how to use words in both American and British English and they learn more about the culture and people of both countries.

Good luck