Teacher Discussion Forums

I've got a pretty basic PC with Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003 and I was wondering what's the best font to use for English learners?

I've heard that certain fonts are difficult for Middle Eastern learners. Currently I use Verdana, because it seems to work on most PCs and seems pretty clear for most uses.

James

P.S. It needs to be a font with most of the IPA characters, because I use them quite extensively in lessons...

I think Arial is always good. Trebuchet MS is good for title lines or larger text.

By the way, Arab students tend to scan words the wrong way subconsciously (cos Arabic goes right to left), so it's useful for them to do eye-scanning exercises similar to what people do on speed-reading courses.

Have you ever noticed Arab students making mistakes like this: poeple, fihsing, speebdoat? This stems from scanning the wrong way.





my site: www.roadtogrammar.com

It's quite interesting that when they read/write they mix up
b and d, but when they're speaking they mix up b and p.

James

P.S. If anybody needs practice at these sounds, check out my pronunciation page with Flash applets to allow you to hear the sounds...
http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/beginner/Pronunciation.html

http://desktoppub.about.com/od/fonts/p/schoolfree.htm

Try this site. Some fonts are free, some not so free.

Jarman and Jardotty might be good starts for free fonts.

If you're willing to pay, you can also consider :

http://desktoppub.about.com/library/fon ... tm#ukfonts

Sassoon is good, includes manuscript and joined Italic fonts of various kinds at various costs. It also includes symbols for other languages, including French, German, Romanized Arabic, Esperanto, etc. So a wide range, but all Roman script though. But then that is all we need for English anyway.

I've always thought it was crazy that EFL books and materials were printed with sans serif fonts like Arial and Helvetica, since virtually all publications in English are written with serif fonts (e.g., variations of Times New Roman). Why train the student to read letters that will look very different when they try to tackle a newspaper, magazine article or book?