Korean Job Discussion Forums

[butlerian]

Anyone have any recommendations for a good textbook to use with 1st graders at a middle school? I generally use the internet for my lessons, but I'd like to introduce something a bit more structured as I'm relatively new to teaching and so I could do with more guidance. My students are mostly of a fairly low level so I'm finding it difficult to find a book that will interest them.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

This is a really hard age group to find good materials for. Most texts are written for adults or little children and not students half-way in between. interchange by CUP has some good stuff but progresses far too quickly for students of this level. Word-by-Word, a picture dictionary, is good for making hand-outs for things like 'pre-teaching' vocab you can use for lesson activities.

If you find anything that really works well please let us all know, as there's a pretty large void for this area, especially when it comes to material that works well with large classes of low-level students.

[mrsquirrel]

Adventures I think it was called bu OUP.

I posted about it before.

It's written for teenagers.

I'll dig through my emails and check the exact name of it.

[butlerian]

At the moment I've been using sites like www.mes-english.com , but while it's good for teaching vocab and therefore also pronunciation, it's not useful for much else (except for using a little creativity with the free writing). I got the American Headway Starter book recently and I'm wondering if that may be useful. It seems a little bit easier than Interchange.

[mrsquirrel]

It's called Adventures. Here's the link
http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/isbn/2030?cc=th

[butlerian]

[passport220]

I agree it is difficult to find a book that you can structure an overall curicluam around however, New Interchange is close (as Yu_Bum_suk said it moves along too quickly, but the table of contents as a series of topics is right) found here as posted by Jizzo T. Clown:
http://www.esnips.com/doc/c5e83356-c8dd-4053-a4c2-165f12eee934/New_interchange-1

As additional matterial I like this series:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/002-7881258-5723245?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Sandra%20Heyer

[mrsquirrel]

There is a Korean reseller for it.

The starter book should be ok.

[butlerian]

[passport220]

The books in the series I like the best are the ones that illustrate a story in 9 to 16 (many have 12) comic-strip style panels.

I first do a pre-listening activity to introduce a story�s content and vocabulary. I direct the student�s attention to the title picture and have them as a group describe what they see. I write a sentence or two on the board using their suggestions but I phrase it in the vocabulary that will be used in the story.

I read the story and do a pronunciation drill of selected words from the story I know the students will need help with. I then assign one panel each to the first 12 students near the front of class. I tell them that they will read their part of the story aloud. I think this part is great because they then start asking their classmates for help with certain words��great spontaneous peer-to-peer teaching.

With a class of 36 students it takes 3 rounds of this to get through the whole class ��.1st round I explain vocabulary, 2nd round reinforce /pronunciation, 3rd round I have the students explain vocabulary back to me (I play it up like I am a dope and make them work at it).

I break up the rounds with the students completing the comprehension exercises offered in the book (they are basic vanilla but they get the job done).

From there it just depends on my objective for the specific class. The books offer writing exercises, including dictation or spin-off discussion activities that involve student�s own experiences (I use this more in my extra after school classes, I can not get my regular classes to engage in useful discussion).

The layout and choice of activities are not always spot on. Some of the stories do not have the text matching the illustration�..so I do it myself. I cut and paste a lot (physical cut an paste the old fashion way - I do not have a scanner available to put the book in electronic form). I steal one activity idea from someplace else in the book to apply in a new way. All of the units (one news story = one unit) in the books are not ready made to teach effective lessons but all of the basic material is there to put it together and make it so �.that is close enough for me.

[yingwenlaoshi]

[ilovebdt]

My favorite beginner level books ar either Headway or Cutting Edge.
Both available at Band and Lunis, Kyobo etc. Any of the big bookstores will have them.

On a side note, I am not surprised your co-teacher said it was too dofficult without actually having seen the book. It makes me so mad when they baby the students. What happened to strectching and challenging the students a bit.


ilovebdt

[butlerian]

[ilovebdt]