Korean Job Discussion Forums

[crazylemongirl]

Since I teach mostly young kids these are mine

I really loath the new parade series. The books place craft activities over language. They're badly set out grr.

I like lets go series. It has the right mix of fun stuff, and boring stuff. All good.

CLg

[camel96]

Yeah Let's Go are pretty good. I don't like them for beginners so much though. Let's Go 1 seems to progress a little fast. For example in LG1 you cover probably the same ground as 2 or 3 Finding Out books.
I don't use them now but for older kids. i.e after LG6 the Open House books are great.

Kind of a nerdy topic for 1.00 in the morning isn't it CLG...?

[OiGirl]

Another vote for Let's Go.

Does anyone have access to Hampton-Brown's Into English in Korea?

[Horangi Munshin]

Let's Go books are good. English time are very good.

The Finding Out series is terrible.

New Parade and Chatterbox aren't very good.

American English Today is alright.

[jaderedux]

I used to teach kindy....I hate Tiny Talk....Benny and Sue must DIE!

Balloon Series....um....no words...????

Agree with opinion on New Parade too much darn cutting and pasting.

I like Domino series and Beeline. The workbooks for these are awesome not much cutting and pasting crap and lots variety.

My 2 won.

Jade

[some waygug-in]

Let's Go is a good series if you have all the stuff that goes with it (and are allowed to use it). Those little student cards are worth their weight in gold. You can get the kids playing games where they HAVE TO use the English on the cards and UNDERSTAND what the words mean.

Finding Out........ as a textbook........ yikes!!!!!!!! but the teacher cards are OK and some of the workbook activities are quite useful. What I do with Finding out is use the workbooks as supplimental material for other books. The crosswords are great at getting the kid's interest, but what I found was that the kids were constantly asking "teacher spelling", if I reduced a page on the copier, and then wrote the answers in random order at the bottom of the page, I could make the crosswords a lot more useful. The kids will actually sit quietly and work through these.

The uno card games that go with finding out are OK, but the problem with them is that it's way too easy for the kids to just play the game in Korean and totally ignore the use of English altogether. The kids like playing uno, but usually have to be forced to use English in the game.

English Time is a great book, but I wish it came with the fancy cards and stuff that Let's Go has. You can buy a book of photocopyable pages that you can make into cards, but they are not set up very well. (all different sizes and you have to try and mix and match) I like English time as a textbook much more than any other, I just wish it came with teacher cards.

American English today, I only use the workbooks as supplimental grammar activities (for lower level classes) so I can't really comment on the textbook. I have used levels 4 - 6 for higher level classes and I think that they are a very useful book, although they are a lot harder than any of the other series mentioned. The workbooks are great at using grammar in conversational contexts that make sense and also explain the meaning. The textbook has a lot of reading, and is quite difficult for most students. I think after Let's Go 6, American English Today 5 would be a good choice, but most hagwans have a problem with students moving downwards in book levels, so it's probably not possible.

One other book that needs some mention is "Up and Away in Phonics" (Not the grammar series). Most Korean students have not had much experience with English phonics and even upper levels can benefit from doing some phonics exercises. Korean students are generally pushed way too far, too fast and are expected to know things that they just haven't studied. Most, have a lot of trouble reading English, so they shy away from it. Their trouble lies in the fact that they haven't done much in the way of phonics, and thus can't pronounce words correctly. So when they try to read, they just find it frustrating and futile. The phonics books help build the necessary skills for them to develop their reading ability. They learn essential vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation and also work with short sentences to establish word-meaning correlations.

The "Up and Away in English series" expects way too much of students as far as reading ability. The textbooks are quite boring, though accurate. I do like using the workbooks from time to time as an additional grammar resource, but I would not recommend using this series as a main text. It moves much too quickly for Korean students. It probably works well with students who already used the roman alphabet in their own language.


Chatterbox....... it has some good things, but a lot of junk too. I couldn't get the kids interested in this series at all. They wouldn't listen to the tapes, wouldn't follow the comic strips, couldn't get much in the way of understanding from the exercises. Perhaps the kid's were just too young or again, they need to work a lot more on phonics before they try and do so much reading in English.


Popcorn I found to be a total waste of time. It was set up in some very seemingly interesting ways, and some of the content should have stimulated the student's interest, but the books are too dependant on the tapes. (even the workbook) I was constantly searching for the correct tape passage so that the exercise would make some sense. Quite often, I couldn't find the required listening exercise. Especially in the workbook, the tapes didn't seem to match with the books. All in all, a very confusing mess.

Anyway, I hope this is of some use to someone.
Cheers

[whatthefunk]

I taught with Lets Go, but didn't have any of the supporting materials. Also, my hagwan refuses to buy new books, so I taught the kids with books they had already been through once. That being said, I think Lets Go are pretty good compared with other books.

Fun Fun books are decent, but there's alot of language mistakes in them that really irritate me. Some examples...'This is a glasses,' taxi spelled texi...

I have a class of four year olds and I use the New Parade starter in that class. I have to disagree witht the rest of the posters and say that for very young kids, New Parade is okay just because it has alot of activities in it. For older kids, I think they would be worthless, but for four year olds, they're great.

Any GnBers out there? GnB text books are by far the worst books out there. They emphasize memorization of pointless phrases and are designed to get kids to pass the GnB tests. My kids suck at english for this reason. They can receit the books word for word, but then I ask them 'how are you today?' and they tell me 'my name is Dong-gu.'

[ulsanchris]

I like the let's go series. If you can push your director to get all the support activities. the flashcards, tapes, extra grammer and listening books the teacher guides, and hte videos.
The other weekend I learnt that the Let's Go series was designed specifically for Japan. It was never meant to be used in Korea. Also Oxford Press has trainers go to the schools to instruct the teachers on how to teach the series. Also that each book is supposed to take 6 months to cover.

[eamo]

I'm doing mostly New Interchange (intro, 1 and 2) for the next 4 months and I'm pretty happy about that.

I've used them before and I think they work well. Very easy to teach (you don't need to prep much or at all) and the componant system (it's broken up in to different skills, reading, writing, speaking etc) means you don't have to do something boring for too long.

I've just finished a session of mostly Move Up which worked pretty well but I had to skip a lot of the longer activities so think about Move Up only if you have a lot of time.

[lesza]

In defense of New Parade...

I like the starter and low level books because they appeal to more kinetic learners and god knows, the students could use a bit of action after a ten hour school day (OK I'm exaggerating). They work well in classes with students for whom the more traditional books don't work as well. I find I can work in a lot of 'conversation' while using New Parade (what can you see, show me red, how many are there, what are you doing, what are they doing, can you... ) It can really appeal to the crafty/ artsy kids (like me) who love to use their hands and have some freedom to create or colour while learning.

One of the 'issues' with New Parade is that they were designed as ESL books, not EFL ones. They operate on the premise that a student is immersed in English learning it as a second language, not learning it as a foreign language. That being said it doesn't mean that the two perspectives are wholly incompatible, but have their limitations. I find the 'story' section of New Parade is hit and miss so it would be good to pair it up with another source for reading. And it does lack grammar, but for some students and some early learners, that might be OK until they have some confidence with English. I went to a workshop with Mario Herrera, the author, and he did a great job 'selling' the books walking us through how he envisioned the curriculum being used.

Colouring outside the lines....

[kimcheeking]

For an adult speaking class I swear by Firsthand one & Firsthand two

These books are fantastic, very easy to teach and well laid out to boot.

[matthews_world]

[ajuma]

Yeah, First Hand (the whole series!) gets my vote for the best adult/uni student book. The dialogues are intelligent, and you can add extra vocab as you see fit. And the students actually TALK!!

My favorite kids series is Sesame Street, but it's no longer available. Let's Go is an ok substitute. Just make sure that everyone has the same book! They came out with a second edition, and if half have the first and half the second, you'll be in trouble!!

Hey, for the kindies, I thought Balloons was just fine! Lots of activites and some grammar. You've GOT to go through the teacher's book, though. The songs and chants are pretty fun!

[captain kirk]

i love new parade. so what if there's cutting and pasting. the kids get to zone out and drift off and do some 'kinetic activity' while they're in an english environment. joke around and tease while doing this, interact. hang out speaking english for the ten minutes it takes, and speed it along, those perfectionists cutting exactly along the dotted lines, by snatching their scissors and slashing those bitties free for immediate glueing. there are songs, and the songs are good, with great music (guitar, voices good, melody). korean kids love to sing. i like to sing with korean kids who love to sing. get the class-box rockin' with good fellowship; become one voice. they've been in school all day, being with the foreign teacher is a magical time for them. it lacks the formality of being with a korean teacher. they take a shine to you. so i'm all for colourful variety. new parade has that. new parade has a serious problem though. at the back of the book the last ten pages are the 'cut out' bits for the pasting. these pages have a cut line, semi perforated, ready for tearing out. ok. but so does the rest of the entire book, which is insane. so we have a 'taping bee'. put an inch of scotch tape at the top and bottom covering the starts of the cut lines. every page (100). otherwise the books would be losing pages through just wear and tear, not to mention kids idly picking at them for the 'tear of it'. the three tapes matched to the book have songs not in the text. all books become a routine, but new parade's all round thrill lasts longer for it's powerful variety.

[TECO]

New Headway

American Headway

These are possibly some of the best EFL textbooks I've used.

See: http://www.oup.com/elt/tw/?view=searchresults&sortorder=score&textsearchtype=exact&branch=10533826&freesearch=Headway