Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

What the most useful university textbook for teaching English to Korean students?

1. Conversation (Listening/Speaking)
2. Reading
3. Writing

[kimcheeking]

This depends on a number of factors. Are your classes levelled according to ability (probably not)? What are the goals of the administration? How prescriptive are they? any flexibility? What are your goals as a teacher? What is your teaching philosophy? I suggest that you first try to address these questions.

If however you do not have time to do that or are not inclined then I would suggest for a good basic book Firsthand 2. This book focuses primarily on speaking/listening abilities, however there are simple reading-writing exercises that the ambitious teacher could easily expand upon.

For more advanced classes and a more 4 skills approach I would suggest Passages 1 or 2, preferably 1. This book is great - unfortuneately I don't get to really use the reading/writing portions due to the nature of the program where I am teaching.

For a writing textbook I would suggest Weaving it Together 3 or 4. The readings in this book have something to be desired but they are easily supplemented. I find the book has some good approaches to teaching elementary academic writing. I also use as a source for inspiration and supplement At a Glance: Essays, At a Glance: Paragraphs, & At a Glance: Sentences. It would defineately be advisable to buy a grammar book with exercises to use for a writing class. I also occasionally use one with my high level speaking classes to help clarify a particularily difficult point of grammar.

Last point of advice - don't take what I or anyone else says as absolutely correct. Look closely at materials before making a decision. What works for one teacher may not work for another. You also really strongly need to consider the goals of the university/program that you will be teaching for.

[Tiger Beer]

[ajuma]

I just came across the book "Gear Up" published by Longman. It's SPECIFICALLY GEARED for uni students. I haven't used it yet, but we're going to try it out for the fall sememter. It covers topics that uni students are interested in, such as borrowing money, dating, talking about activities...things that are usually left out of "adult" conversation books.

[deessell]

Lets talk - Leo Jones. Cambridge University Press. #2 is geared to a pre intermediate level. Contains relevant topics for discussion and listening exercises.

[Hanson]

Some co-workers of mine are liking "World View" 1-4. I'm not crazy about it, but I'm very hard to please with textbooks.

I used 'American Headway' for an adult conversation class last semester and liked it, but there were too many listening and grammar activities for my teaching partner's liking.

I supplement a lot with the 'Rooks' series as well as 'Teacher Resource Packs' from various textbooks.

[rokgryphon]

For reading and writing we use the Great sentences;..paragpahs..and essays series. Each is a different book. Also now using "Take Charge of
Your Writing" but, I really like "Writing Academic English" I use it for a lot of supplements.

[denverdeath]

As others have said, it depends on the level of the students/class and what goals need to be achieved but here are a few that have been pretty useful to me...

1. Conversation

The Pagoda SLE books aren't terribly bad if they still sell them through regular bookstores and if you're allowed to use them at a university.

The Headway books are pretty good, too.

I would recommend that you and some co-workers get together and make your own book of interesting articles with vocabulary reinforcement, activities, and discussion questions and have your uni sell them as required texts for whatever classes they're needed for. However, this might be a bit more work than you and your co-workers want to do and you also may not be compensated very well for your efforts.

2. Reading

If still in print, the Active Skills for Reading series is pretty good. (Thomson & Heinle - 4 books)

Also, the Reading for Today series is pretty good. (Thomson & Heinle - 5 books)

A little basic, but having lots of topics which are fairly interesting, is the Reading Advantage series. (Thomson & Heinle - 4 books)

3. Writing

An excellent book that covers almost everything for writing in the humanities is Evergreen: A Guide to Writing. It might be a bit high for a first-year uni class though. I think it's quite good as it uses many different styles of writing and you can go from paragraphs to essays fairly easily by picking and choosing various sections from the book. There are lots of basics like brainstorming, topic sentences, thesis statements, and grammar. (Houghton Mifflin)

Another is The Longman Academic Writing series. (Pearson/Longman - 3 books)

Old but effective, varied, and interesting is Effective Writing from Cambridge. There are some other good books from Cambridge but I cannot recall the names of them.

Some good books are available from Barron's. Again, they might be a bit over the students' heads, depending on their levels.

Handbook for Writers is also good but I'm not sure how easily you could teach that sort of book. It's nice for use as a reference though.

Great Sentences/Paragraphs/Essays can be somewhat boring and repetitive but will allow you to teach the basics very well. (Houghton Mifflin I think)

[TECO]

I use these texts with my students:

1. Interchange 2005 3rd edition by Cambridge

2. Let's Talk by Cambridge

3. American Headway by Oxford

4. Connect with English A video series and text - like a soap opera.


The Oxford and Cambridge stuff is probably as 'leading edge' as your gonna get for EFL materials, in my opinion.

But these texts tend to be pretty expensive compared to what other books cost.