Job Discussion Forums

[Laurence]

I'd like to find something which gives a solid, interesting context for language learning (in terms of the aesthetics of the material and the linguistic content) and can lead to interesting supplementation / generalisation.

I have used New Parade and Young Learners Go and the EF in-house books too, none of which are particularly good, in my opinion.

I used one book called "Picture Dictionary" which was pretty cool but only really a vocabulary builder - not really a good base for classwork, owing to the narrow variety of activities and skills needed to complete the given exercises. Also, it was just one book, not a leveled series.


What do you think are the best classroom books for EAL students aged 6 - 11?

[senorfay]

The Chatterbox series is pretty good.

At the school I'm at we use the Side by Side series which is also pretty good.

[Laurence]

Chatterbox! wow nostalgia ~

.. my first teaching job, in Italy.


I'll look at side by side, thanks : )

I just found one called Cornerstone, it's from Longman I think. Looks pretty good and varied.

[mat chen]

I really enjoyed using Chatterbox. They have a talking dog on the tape.

[Chris_Crossley]

At the primary school I worked at in Wuhan for a year until January 2005, all those kids who had foreigners as their English teachers had Chatterbox, although I worked only with books #2 and #3 (or were they #3 and #4? - I can't really remember!), as I recall.

The songs were great fun for the kids to sing at the beginning of each lesson, though - they were quite boisterous at times!

[kev7161]

My opinion is for your school to invest in a Phonics book to go along with your English language learning book. A good teacher using a good Phonics book will not only build a young child's vocabulary very quickly, but will also instill some good pronunciation skills early on -- very valuable . . . in my opinion. An American company, Hougton Mifflin Harcourt, has an office in Shanghai and they can certainly hook you up with anything you might need (they also have a wide catalog of other books, not necessarily ESL, but can certainly be used in that field). An average phonics book costs around USD 12.00 per book plus shipping, so it can get pricey. But one of their books has a black and white teacher's copy called the "Masters" book where one can simply copy off the pages and distribute to the students. Works just as well, only not colorful at all so not too lively for the kiddies. I'm not advertising for them but if you (or anyone) wants a reference email, I can PM you one and you can take it from there.

[milkweedma]

The "Beeline Plus" series of books are excellent IMO. Way better than "Let's Go" or other toilet paper creations often used in buxibans in Korea and Taiwan.