Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello,

I'm in Korea presently and need some advice on which book to use. (And while we're at it, maybe the moderator could tell me how to register for the Korean message boards, because as of now, I'm not able to post messages there. Anyway, that's a different problem.)

I have a class with eleven excellent students, around the age of 9. They know a lot of words, but not a lot of structures for speaking. They can't put sentences together. I need a book that helps them do that.

I would love to use Let's Go 1. It looks to be right at their level. Unfortunately, my boss tells me that Let's Go 1 is "too common in Korea". What the hell is that? Too common? Do you know why it's common? Because it's beeping good. That's why. I'm still miffed.

Anyway, any advice you could give me would be very much appreciated. To recap, I'm looking for a book around the level of Let's Go 1. What's the next best thing out there?

I'm not familiar with the Let's Go books (I'm new to the ESL game), so I'm not sure if this is anything you're looking for, but at my school we use the Reading Milestones series. If you're not familiar with them, it's a series of readers that starts with very basic vocabulary and sentence structures and gradually builds as they move up. I've been using them with my newcomers all year, and they've had huge oral language growth. The books are great for both vocabulary and sentence structure. Like I said, I'm pretty new to ESL and to teaching, so there might be something better out there, but it's worth a look.

Yep - I've heard that said about Let's Go in Korea as well. Students bouncing around too many different hagwons having to do the same 'common' books over again.

Up and Away 1, Parade 1 are good alternatives, but may also be labeled 'too common'. Parade 1 is verging on content/task-based learning, which can be difficult to teach well if you're inexperienced, and Up and Away 1 is great for both an 'audiolingual' style with lots of memorization and drill work or a more open style where language is modeled very clearly and supported by great pics, and the teacher decides where to take it from there.

A cool little series I saw recently was called "Fun Fun English" - made in Korea but surprisingly made by native speakers who obviously had some idea what they were doing. It's similar to Let's Go, but includes more in the way of reading, the pics are better, and there are actually Korean characters in the plots.

'English Time' was another series I heard some positive things about, but I haven't used it myself.

If you do get around to using either Let's Go or Parade, my site has a full bank of listening tests for the Let's Go books, and a full set of pre-made syllabuses for Parade: www.englishraven.com

Good luck with your textbook search!

Jason