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[redeyes]

Guys and girls, many thanks all your answers thus far regarding HCT. I am grateful for everyone's input and insights.

Which course books do HCT typically use for General English classes and Writing classes -- or does that change Semester by Semester? Are teachers allowed to select their own books -- or are books decided for the course, and then teachers supplement at will?

Is the staff room well stocked with supplementary materials such as speaking games/activities and DVD's ( "Headway" DVD series etc )?



At the majority of schools I have worked at , there is often an "options" course too, which students can add to their main courses -- that might be English through film, literature,current affairs, computers etc. Is HCT keen on such courses?

I think such courses are a great addition to main courses, and I think the students benefit a lot. ( Curiously enough,The British Council, otherwise very very up to date on the newest materials, EFL diversity etc -- eschews such courses, except for , of course, English through CALL, which is a growing area with BC. Having said that, my DOS at BC was very happy for teachers to incorporate elements of film, literature,even comic books and newspaper cartoons etc as part of the main courses.)

[kaw]

Books used are pretty standard throughout the colleges I think.. Diploma Foundation where I am are on Cutting Edge Elementary, Basics in Listening (or maybe that was for last semester) and Keep Writing. Then they have 'What a World' for their reading class.
Teachers have some input as to what books should be used...as long as they are on the 'approved' list.
Resources are pretty much on par with the BC in the individual colleges though planning in advance is often needed as there will be (as an example) the Headway dvds but no workbooks.....hmmmmm whose bright idea was that then?
If you plan in advance then these things can be borrowed from other colleges in the land of HCT.
We all supplement with whatever we feel appropriate so no worries there.

As for the extra courses - we dont have any....and doubt the students would be willing to study more than they do. We do have cinema sessions though in the ILC.

At lower levels - the sorts of things you've been doing at the BC will probably be fine. At Higher levels, as you will have seen, the focus is on IELTS now with an IELTS coursebook being used through the term - possibly supplemented with C-Edge or similar.

[mishmumkin]

The HCT recruiters mentioned "Headway" back in April (among others).

[redeyes]

Thanks for everyone's input on the thread.

Appreciated.

Re the new Headways -- I find them far superior to the older versions, not necessarily in grammar content, (the originals were pretty good) but in regards to contextual and conceptual relevance.

I remember using the original Upper Intermediate text 18 years ago, which featured major sections on Shakespearian English......And the relevance of the -- albeit beautiful -- yet archaic, anachronistic language in "12th Night" to a young Iranian is....?

And the original Headway Advanced featured a listening which would frankly be considered pure heresy in Saudi , or to most Muslims anywhere -- There was a listening with Carl Sagan, in which he poses some pretty heavy duty heretical theological questions. I remember a Saudi in my class looking utterly shocked, scared even, at some of the implications.

Other listenings included an interview with Quentin Crisp -- who I think is a very interesting social commentator on England's social prejudices in the 1930's -- but again, surely he has very little relevance to say, a Saudi student in 2008.

Well done Headway for getting up to date.

I still rate them highly though -- parochialism, phony Estuary English accents on the listening exercises, sometime irrelevance, Oxford snobbery and all.

[veiledsentiments]

I can only hope that they have improved them. For the reasons you described and many others, I thought they were appalling and have never figured out why anyone would find them at all acceptable.

I took great care to make sure that I taught classes that didn't use it.

VS

[NadiaK]

Ah, but the Quentin Crisp unit was a great excuse to bring Sting's Englishman in New York into the class.

In addition to Cutting Edge in Diploma Foundations, I know of colleges that use New Headway (Plus) and Interchange. Some of the Higher Diploma English courses use other textbooks and (sometimes) no textbook.

Basically there is a common list of textbooks from which each college course team must select (as kaw mentioned).

Lots of technology at HCT, but my particular college has much less in the way of supplementary listening resources than other places I've worked, and no flashcards or wallcharts.

[bje]

[redeyes]

--

[redeyes]

Interesting responses -- Kaw mentioned "What a World" being used at HCT. I have browsed the text, but not used it yet -- It seems quite interesting -- what is it like to use in class? Kaw also mentioned a text called "Keep Writing" -- That's a new one to me. What's it like? Is it a British text?

I find consistently good writing textbooks are hard to come by, so I usually compile my own "mini coursebook,� mainly made up of academic essay writing sections from good IELTS texts, and then I supplement on top of that.


For General English/Conversation classes etc I have found "Cutting Edge" to be consistently pretty reasonable as a core text.

"Interchange" is not bad I think -- but isn't it a bit like one of those summer course "intensive learning" type of texts?Still, for conversation classes -- where fluency is the aim after all -- I am sure it works well.

Any feedback on that from boarders?

Re. "Headway" -- c'mon guys, I know its faults ( listed above ) but I still think if selected wisely, the core of the series is excellent, ( particularly the grammar sections) even if it is written by "ivory towers" Oxford EFL'ers with little wider vision.

Perhaps it's a Brit/US thing -- I find the Brits can accept "Headway's" faults, whilst Americans often just seem puzzled by the Anglo centric emphasis. I remember one Canadian teacher I worked with actually thinking the plummy, snobby Brit accents on the listenings were supposed to be a humourous joke! I told her people do actually speak like that! Lol....still, some of the regional American accents on the US textbooks sound equally funny to the Brits I'd imagine.

Funny how subconscious prejudice and parochial world views are sometimes revealed by coursebooks -- I remember Headway used to feature an entire chapter based around the stereotype of the �ignorant American tourist� in Europe! How embarrassing was that. There was also a listening that featured "a really funny situation" on an aeroplane involving handicapped people with false limbs!

How do things like that get past editors?

[ckhl]

Two forays into the book saw us abandoning it in favour of writing our own materials.

Are you given release time to do this? No? Do you end up spending more time writing and developing the materials than the students spend using them? What, really then, is the return on the investment?

[veiledsentiments]

I taught mostly writing for my last 10 years in the Gulf. There was never an acceptable text beyond the lower levels. We always created our own materials and of course, there is never any release time given.

To be honest, it wasn't all that hard and after the first couple years all I had to do was fine tune. The writing teachers worked together and shared - especially at HCT.

VS

[bje]

[veiledsentiments]

[Afra]

I don't use a course book, I write classwork and assessments, other than college/level wide assessments, based on the students' content course in an effort to encourage vocational English: they are not typical IELTS type assessment as I try to replicate what the students might have to do once they are at work. I haven't seen a course book which does this but I do take content from ESP course books and adapt it.