Korean Job Discussion Forums

[SgtPepper]

Hey ho,

I've got my location! Busan baby, here I come!

Well now I'm starting to think about getting equipment and stuff sorted and ready to go, one thing that I was thinking about was getting a couple of books to help me teach.

Basically, if anyone has any suggestions I'd be grateful, any books that helped you with lessons, grammar, whatever. I've not taught before so I'll take as much advice as you can throw at me.

To start off, I've been told several times that Practical English Usage by Michael Swan is very good.

[nathanrutledge]

P.E.U is good for what it is - a grammar guide. It won't teach you squat about teaching.

Plenty of books out there for plenty of different styles. Most of my stuff is research papers, collections of essays, etc. Off the top of my head, two books that have been very good to me are

101 Word Games by George P. McCallum. It's an older book, but it's got plenty of games (101 to be precise) that are grouped into categories (vocab, numbers, structure, spelling, conversation, writing, role plays). Each game has simple instructions and most of them require no materials other than a blackboard/paper/pencil/etc. It's a great resource for fillers, and with a little bit of work, you can adjust the activities to match your goals pretty easily.

Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching by Diane Larsen-Freeman. It's a basic overview of what the title says. Chapters cover grammar-translation, direct method, audio-lingual, TPR, CLT, etc... Lots of information with real world examples for each method. It's very easy to see the pros and cons of every method and it's useful for figuring out how to integrate the different methods into your classes.

As I said, I've got a whole pile of useful material I can suggest - give me a bit more as to what you're looking for. Age level? Public/Private? Books on methods? Theories? Activities? Etc...

[mwalls]

I found "How to Teach English" by Jeremy Harmer a nice intro to teaching and grammar. It's not exceedingly thorough, but for someone who's never taught before (like me) it's a great place to start.

[SgtPepper]

[diver]

Jim Scrivener's Learning Teaching and Teaching English Grammar

Swan's Practical English Usage +1

[alistaircandlin]

I would recommend any of the Cambridge Copy Collection series of books. The Harmer book above is fine - it is general advice on good teaching practice.

I think for a new teacher another thing you really need is a bunch of activites that you can use.

nathan mentioned 101 Word Games - I don't know that one specifically, but that's the sort of thing that will be of practical help, alongside the Harmer book, for general advice.

I like the Cambridge University Press EAL books, personally, things like Games for Language Learning, five Minute activities by penny Ur, or Dialogue Acivities. They are a bit pricey, but I find them usefull.

From the Cambridge Copy Collection series you might try things like Activity box, Speaking Extra, Reading Extra, or Writing Extra. These are more expensive, but are photocopiable activities - so they give you ready made lessons.

You can download at lot of this stuff, if you don't mind having it in .pdf format from englishtips.org