Job Discussion Forums

[jonniboy]

A place I work for wants me to select books for them for this course. Any recommendations? I've never taught that level before and the only book available in the local bookshop is "Upstream Proficiency" which I don't like the look of.

[jonniboy]

Thanks for all those replies people.

Looks like I'm stuck with Upstream, then.

[spiral78]

Unless you want to go for the Cambridge stuff (which includes a lot of not-very-useful meta-language/grammatical items) I usually teach upper int/advanced 'in-field.' Meaning that at this level it's more common for learners to need, well, exactly what they need.

My government employee students worked on Intercultural Communications (try www.executiveplanet.com) and negotiations/meetings/public speaking. It's all tailored to fit...same with my tax accountants and auditors and HR students...

I guess this isn't very helpful, but tailored courses at this level may be the best bet - but you have to be into creating materials.

[Glenski]

What exactly is the goal of the course?
speaking
reading
writing
making presentations
ESP (specialized language)
4-skills

Are the students all in the same line of work?
How old are they?
What have they used prior to this course?

[J.M.A.]

Proficiency is CEF C2 level. It's really hard for even the most advanced learners. Assuming you want some type of systematic coverage of what Proficiency level actually feels like, (presumably for the exam), you might want to consider Longman Pearson's Gold Series. It's nice because you have the student's book, the teacher's book and the exam maximizer, which is a third book of extra texts, listening activities and exercises plus a full mock. It's not easy to use unless you're already familiar with C.P.E. and have some idea of how to teach for exams, but that's true for all the material. Real C2 level students are excellent by definition and really need something hard to push them.

[Insubordination]

I have plenty of ideas, but it's hard to recommend books without knowing the purpose of the course and exactly how proficient they might be. Would they be higher than New Cutting Edge Advanced (a pretty decent text-book). If so, I will only recommend books I have actually used and enjoyed. Unfortunately, I have never had a General English proficiency class.

For grammar that really stretches I like Grammar and Vocabulary for Cambridge Advanced and Proficiency.

For writing, I like Successful Writing Proficiency by Virginia Evans.

IELTS Masterclass and Objective IELTS (Advanced) are good but check that the level's high enough. Like CAE books, they can restrict skills to the exam format. However any of these would provide a good springboard.

English Collocations in Use (Advanced). Also, Phrasal Verbs in Use/ Advanced Vocabulary in Use/Idioms in Use are challenging supplementary books.

For Academic English, I recommend Academic Connections 4 (get the CD's too).

There are plenty of great Business English textbooks too. The usual suspects like Market Leader and Intelligent Business (Upper-Int).

For speaking, many chapters of Cambridge A-Z Discussions (both Int and Upper-Int) have some decent ideas but not every chapter is usable or interesting..

Also, found this old thread with even more ideas:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=7142

Good luck choosing.

[jonniboy]

It's a General English course for a fairly disparate bunch of students. Youngest is 17, oldest is in her mid 40s. Some studying for work reasons, others with future hopes of University and others I haven't met.