Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Enigma]

I teach at an adult hagwon, but I start the day with a very small class with only 3 kids in it (2 grade 3 students and 1 grade 5 student, 2 boys and 1 girl). They're great kids and get along really well, but as I teach mainly adults, I'm not that familiar with all the different kids' textbooks series.

We've been using the English Time series. I think we started on the 2nd book, and now are on book 5. However book 5 seems to be a lot higher than book 4 and it's quite difficult for them. Once I finish this book in a month or so, I'd like to try a book from a different series that's maybe in between book 4 and 5 in terms of difficulty, and then return to book 5 and review it.

If that makes any sense, do any of you have any suggestions for a series and book number that would work for that? I live in a very small city nowhere near Seoul, so I can't just go to the bookstore and look at the different series myself.

Thanks

[busanliving]

A lot of the time lets go will follow English time so you can teach English time 3, let's go 3 and then English time 4. If you still don't want to go up a level you could try an all aboard book after lets go although let's to 4 and 5 are quite a but harder.

[some waygug-in]

Go to your nearest Kim and Johnson's

or English Plus and browse through the various coursebooks.

Some people like "new parade" some hate it.

Some like "super kids" some hate it.


I liked "American English Today" but others hated it.

I liked using "Up and Away" grammar books to use as

extra worksheets.

Whatever you decide, you should remember that a new coursebook

will not necessarily use the same vocabulary or structures, so you'll have

to go through them and decide what's best for you.

[YTMND]

I like English Time as a second to Let's Go. For younger kids, the Backpack series is ok, but there aren't enough examples. Super Kids 1 and 2 are ok, but check what is in the chapters. When I looked, I think the third one was yellow and started with days of the week. It was very boring for the students. They didn't start off on a good note. There were only a few chapters that seemed useful. Book 4 was ok, and I used that in role play activities, the green one. Then, I think the 5th was a light orange color one and also ok.

One thing to realize, the higher up you go, the less they should be using books. After book 3 of any series (or before), I stop using the book as a regular thing. Try to get the students to speak out of the book. This is the same thing with Side by Side for adults.

Last year, I taught in a poor rural area, and middle school students were using Interchange books. In one chapter it talked about comparing different cities and why they are different. These students had no concept of being in different cities and could barely talk about it in their native language. The vocabulary words were completely out of sync with what they needed. So, we pretty much skipped using the book. I used the chapters as a guideline and wrote up new lessons.

You might need to do the same and find reading sections online. One thing you can do is remove important words from a reading and put a blank in their place. Either have them listed or if it is a good class have them figure on their own suitable words.

[Enigma]

Thanks to all of you for your replies. They're very helpful.