Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jajdude]

Bad:

Step Up
Expressions
American English Today
New Parade
=======================
Good (or at least not bad):

Let's Go
Chatterbox
Exploring English
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So-so:

American Start with English
Get Real
====================

Others?

[mindmetoo]

[dulouz]

I like Otis the Blackman in Exploring English. He has those pimp shoes and a big Afro. Maria Miranda is beautiful and Dr. Pasto is interesting.

[TECO]

I've been using the following series of texts over the last few years.

I don't have much experience with anything other than the Cambridge and Oxford series, unfortunately. I guess that they're as good as anything else out there.

Let's Talk series (Cambridge)

Clockwise series (Cambridge)

New Interchange Third Edition (Cambridge)

American Headway series (Oxford)

[I_Am_Wrong]

Yuck...I hate New Interchange
-I also hate All Aboard
-I had a lot of fun teaching Kids Safari to my Public School grade 4's last term...I did lots of creative tweaking though.
-I'm trying out a Let's Go book right now and so far it's alright.
-At my winter camp I'm teaching from the BackPack series and in general it's pretty good. The songs are a mixed bag ranging from really good to absolutely terrible. It does have the worst chants I've ever heard so they just get skipped. I'm also finding the Backpack books to be a little fluffy.
-

[Eunoia]

You don't know what BAD is until you've tried teaching from the Hayes "Learning English" series...

Count youself lucky if you don't know what I'm talking about

[jajdude]

I would say "homemade" (said company has its own) books tend to suck. And I've heard what they use in public schools, which you have to use (?) are real bad.

[Unreal]

Coversation:

Best Friends series (lots of different activities to do, basic)
Side by Side series: Good for quiet classes (They can read but not really have a conversation)

Talk, Talk series. (one lesson doesn't quite fill a class though)
Teen Talking series (my favorite at the moment)
Express Yourself series (first half of each lesson is easy, second half is full of weird expressions which I find useless)
[These 3 are from LIS Korea.]

Small Group Discussion Topics (deals with current issues...leads to interesting conversations but some of the topics are not so current anymore)

Phonics:
Up and Away (I like to have the kids fill in the letters/words, then color the pictures eg. "color the dog blue" to check their comprehension)

Writing:
Ready to Write (good, requires a high reading level)
Write Ideas (difficult to teach but allows for more creativity)
Composition Practice
Get Ready to Write

In terms of bad books, I find most franchise books to be terrible. Both of the schools I have worked at once bought into a franchise but have since moved away because of the bad curriculum. Maybe I just have a grudge against them because they charge an arm and a leg to join their franchise, yet they can't seem to afford proof readers as their curriculum is chock full of mistakes

[Zenpickle]

Good
Hip Hip Hooray
Express Yourself
Teen Talk


Bad
Domino
New Parade
Brighton's in-house ripped-off books

Absolute Worst
0153 Science School series - These cheap science projects are so bad that students, and I myself, get injured from them with brittle glass, sharp wires and -- one time they even sent syringes with the needles still attached for the five-year-old class.

[Newt14]

Good:
-New Interchange (only for adults)
-Take off (Middel School) - I would like them to make CDs rather than tapes as I ended up transcipting all three tapes for the 4 level series because the tapes suck and have extra oral exercises on them and the teachers manual are too expensive to buy.
-Let's Go
-Teen Talk (2 is better than 1) and most discussion books by Lee Korea
-Small group discussion books (some units i skip due to topic like sex ed.)
-Reading book by Penguin Young reader - stories like Sleeping Beauty and Peter and the wolf that the kids usually already know.
-English Time Story books
-Composition Practise

Bad:
-Spectrum Writing and Reading only beacuae it's all American topics and my kids hated it. It was like teaching in a funeral home.
-Oxfords readers


So so:
-EFL Phonics - made in Korea and they use words that are uncommon, pictures I don't like or they spell them wrong. Examples:
mike for microphone
nib - hard to tell by the picture
Indian - I also refuse to teach my students the song 10 little Indians because I think it is racist
Eskimo

-Handmade or school produced - I have seen some that aren't too bad, my school now uses most of there own, when we really don't like what they give us or they don't have a book for a level we use what we want. However, I'm the one who has to find the books.

[some waygug-in]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned "English Time" for kids classes.

It's as good as or maybe a bit better than "Let's Go". But that depends on whether or not you have all of the materials that go with the Let's Go series.

If you only have the text and workbook, I'd rather use English Time any day. But if you have all the cards, videos and extra books, Let's go is great.


Chatterbox I can't believe anyone would recommend this series.

When I used it, the kids hated it, they hated the songs, the activities. I couldn't get them interested in the book at all. But perhaps it was something to do with the group more than the book.

If someone has had good luck with it, then I guess I must be missing something.

Finding Out A mixed bag, I hate the textbook - there's nothing there.

The workbooks are OK in some ways, if you have the teacher cards, which seem to be getting hard to find. The kids love the Uno games that are based on this series.

I actually like using the workbooks for extra worksheets, but I would rather have one of the other series mentioned for a main text.

Fun Fun English- basically a cheap rip off of Let's Go with some Korean stuff added. I'm surprised they have gotten away with printing and selling it, but then again, this is Korea.


For adults I've stopped using the standard ESL course books altogether and use reading books.

Reading Challenge, Reading Advantage, What a World, Read All About it,
and others. These books tend to focus less on grammar and more on
comprehension and vocabulary building, which is what my students seem to prefer. The one thing they are shy on is good conversation questions, but I can usually add a few of my own to make them work.

[I_Am_Wrong]

as far as public schools go....

I think a lot of it depends on the co-teacher. If you had a shitty co-teacher or were left to fend for yourself then the elementary school text book is pretty much useless (in Gyeonggi do anyways). However, with a good co-teacher it's not a problem as suffices just fine considering the obstacles the public school's face (ie. massive differentials in English capability due to hagwons). Furthermore, for classes I teach myself I was given choice over textbooks. later.

[Sage Monkey]

The Bad:

Take Off (the tapes lick balls and the activities are boring)
Smile (too many glossy pictures and fluff)
Go Go Loves English (any class that I've been forced to teach this book to has learned that it's real title is "BABO Loves English"
New Parade (no words can express how bad New Parade is!)
EFL Phonics (obscure, unpredictable vocabulary, boring layout, and mispellings galore)
Domino
Up and Away (good in theory but boring as hell)
Let's Go (I can already see the shock on the faces of anyone reading this... just try teaching Let's Go again after teaching English Time for a while and you will see why Oxford University Press updated their lineup by coming out with a new series!)
Anything by Longman Press, almost by default

Good:

English Time (good vocabulary and easy to follow the learning points... the phonics sections have some problems but overall this is the best series for young learners)
English Time Story Books (good reinforcement practice for the Englis Time series)
Magic Time (much better than Let's Go Starter but a little too heavy on vocabulary and the songs aren't predictable enough for younger students)
Mr. Bugs (great phonics books)
any song books by JY Books
Get Together (an excellent text for low-levelled middle school students by Oxford University Press - it beats Get Together hands down)
New Interchange
Almost anything by Oxford University Press

Not too bad:

Exploring English (a little long and boring towards the end of the book but overall covers a lot of ground. The workbook, if you use it, requires the students to know how to handwrite or at least be able to read it. This can fumble some low level students from being able to follow the book well)
Tactics in Listening (Basic, Developing, and Advanced levels: good thematic based listening series meant for middle schoolers)

[jajdude]

Different opinions based on different experiences with various texts...

Expected.

[shevek]