Best ESL Books?

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

I am interested in knowing what everyone thinks are the best ESL books for:

Kids (elementary):
Adults
Businesspeople
Adolescents

I’ve only heard of a few series. I am hoping I can find something that matches my teaching style in each category so I can be prepared for new tutor gigs this year.

2

If you’re in Taiwan, wouldn’t you be better off with an EFL book?

3

With my adult students I choose the Interchange/Passages series for the following reasons:

  1. It has six levels (12, if you count the half-levels, which are available as separately published books)
  2. It has its own placement test, so you can easily work out what level to use with a class/student.
  3. There is a collection of pretty professional videos and a video workbook to use with each unit. (Some of them are quite funny.)
  4. It’s reasonably up to date (latest edition is 2007)
  5. It’s grammatically based, but not heavily so. It disguises its grammatical base with a focus on an interesting and useful communicative function for each unit.
  6. It comes with its own tests, so you don’t have to create your own.
  7. It focuses on all four skills.
  8. It was the choice of textbook at some of the better institutions I have worked at.
  9. The Teacher’s Book is actually pretty useful (it even includes instructions on how to administer and score an oral test - something that Taiwan needs a lot more of.)
  10. You can download copies from FilesTube.
  11. It comes with a Powerpoint slideshow for every exercise in each unit (as you press enter the answers appear one by one)
  12. It’s not that expensive (NT$255 for the students book for half a level, which is about a semester’s work).

That’s all I can think of right now.
It’s somewhat more ESL than EFL, but hey, it’s a small difference that you can compensate for if your students don’t plan to go abroad.

4

[quote=“dashgalaxy86”]I am interested in knowing what everyone thinks are the best ESL books for:

Kids (elementary):
Adults
Businesspeople
Adolescents

I’ve only heard of a few series. I am hoping I can find something that matches my teaching style in each category so I can be prepared for new tutor gigs this year.[/quote]

You’re looking for textbooks and ‘general teaching materials’?

That said, good old Dr. Suess has served me very well in teaching 7-9 year old learners the joy of reading. They love it. The rhyming and repetition, paired with the artwork, completely hypnotizes them. Now, these kids are pretty advanced for their age, and already have most of the vocabulary used in these books, but it sure gets them reading, and enthusiastically. P.D. Eastman and Eric Carle are also solid for younger children.

Beats the material that the cram schools churn out for kids to read.

5

I just started using Touchstone for two different adult groups with excellent results. There’s a student book, workbook, CD and a very comprehensive teacher’s manual with suggestions for how to present the material plus supplemental activities and tests. The content generates good conversation as it’s relevant to most people’s daily lives.

6

[quote=“KPSeventy”]You’re looking for textbooks and ‘general teaching materials’?

That said, good old Dr. Suess has served me very well in teaching 7-9 year old learners the joy of reading. They love it. The rhyming and repetition, paired with the artwork, completely hypnotizes them. Now, these kids are pretty advanced for their age, and already have most of the vocabulary used in these books, but it sure gets them reading, and enthusiastically. P.D. Eastman and Eric Carle are also solid for younger children.

Beats the material that the cram schools churn out for kids to read.[/quote]

Couldn’t agree more. The books are easy to read, authentic and funny. Kids need to be encouraged to read for pleasure, and not continually push the limits of the linguistic envelope, which not only kills off their interest in reading for pleasure but also prevents them from developing reading fluency.
However, you will need to supplement Dr Suess with a program of phonics (otherwise the kids tend to learn English words as if they were Chinese characters.)
I had a lot of success with the Steck-Vaughn series of phonics textbooks, even though (or perhaps because?) they are aimed at native speakers.
I’d be interested to know what other phonics books teachers recommend, and whether they would choose a locally written one specifically aimed at Taiwanese kids (and why).

7

I don’t have any recommendations for phonics books. They all seem the same to me, although TBH I’m not really interested in teaching phonics unless requested.

However, a course book that adult students seem to really like is English Conversation in Taiwan by Michael Yeldham. The guy clearly knows what Taiwanese adult students want because I find that when I use this book they get very excited. Difficult vocabulary has a Chinese translation, and the topics tend to be about Taiwan. Grammar is presented explicitly, which again is what Taiwanese adults expect from a lesson, but the majority of each unit is conversation. People can argue whether or not these factors are correct in light of the latest input driven SLA theories, but they are definitely what the punters are looking for.

He gets little things that the big publishers miss, such as the fact that Taiwanese students often don’t know the English name of American movies and movie stars. This sort of thing can make teaching using the mass-market textbooks quite difficult IME. You start talking about movies and gradually realise that the students haven’t got a clue what or who you are talking about. There’s too much assumed cultural knowledge.

It definitely has its weak points. His attempts at humour are sometimes inappropiate and usually not very funny (although that could be down to my poor delivery and timing :laughing: ). The cartoons are also really bad. In general, though, it’s a good book to use if you have a quiet private student and you’re finding starting conversation a bit difficult.

8

[quote=“adikarmika”]With my adult students I choose the Interchange/Passages series for the following reasons:

  1. It has six levels (12, if you count the half-levels, which are available as separately published books)
  2. It has its own placement test, so you can easily work out what level to use with a class/student.
  3. There is a collection of pretty professional videos and a video workbook to use with each unit. (Some of them are quite funny.)
  4. It’s reasonably up to date (latest edition is 2007)
  5. It’s grammatically based, but not heavily so. It disguises its grammatical base with a focus on an interesting and useful communicative function for each unit.
  6. It comes with its own tests, so you don’t have to create your own.
  7. It focuses on all four skills.
  8. It was the choice of textbook at some of the better institutions I have worked at.
  9. The Teacher’s Book is actually pretty useful (it even includes instructions on how to administer and score an oral test - something that Taiwan needs a lot more of.)
  10. You can download copies from FilesTube.
  11. It comes with a Powerpoint slideshow for every exercise in each unit (as you press enter the answers appear one by one)
  12. It’s not that expensive (NT$255 for the students book for half a level, which is about a semester’s work).

That’s all I can think of right now.
It’s somewhat more ESL than EFL, but hey, it’s a small difference that you can compensate for if your students don’t plan to go abroad.[/quote]
I have used Interchange and can attest that it works well :slight_smile: .

9

I used the Interchange series for 5 or so years at one of the so called better institutions. It was ok, but found teachers became lazy with it as it is very teacher friendly. I prefer Headway and Cutting Edge (Originally British, but have Americanized versions). They are a bit eurocentric, but are adaptable to the needs of the students. I even supplement them for my IELTS classes, as Cutting Edge is very task based and good for speaking activities.

10

Do you work for the CUP marketing department? Because I can see Interchange sales rocketing once teachers in Taiwan read that :laughing: .

Headway is good, but I find the listening exercises for the British English version a bit odd. They seem to be either terribly posh Oxford types, or terribly rural Oxfordshire types. I get the feeling that OUP were just using staff and friends of staff for the listening :slight_smile: .

Cutting Edge is also good, and has IWB which is fab, but it’s also a bit over the place IMO. It doesn’t seem to follow any clear structure.

11

How can being too teacher friendly be a bad thing? Is it better to have a book that is not that great so teachers won’t be lazy. I would suggest that if a good book is making teachers lazy, those teachers would not be particularly good no matter what book they were teaching.

12

I understand what Dougster means, though. I’ve used Interchange for a long time and after a while there is a tendency to slip into auto-pilot.

Another weakness of Interchange is the step-up from the first to the second book. It’s too big a leap.

13

I think every course book has its merits and limitations. I’m just saying that the Interchange books are easy to teach, which means the teacher just teaches the book and doesn’t have to think too much. It’s in sections, i.e. vocabulary building, a dialogue, grammar focus, listening practice, etc. Having said that, the students I’ve used it with tend to like it, which is always a good thing. The key is to find a book that both the teacher and the students can work with but not to be over dependent on the book … use it as a spring board for other activities and ideas.

14

A good teacher would expand on any book they were using. A book is just a framework for the teacher to plan the details of their class around. It is not good for a teacher to stick too strictly to any book.

15

Most teachers, unforunately, walk into class a few minutes prior to the start and look at what they are going to do. The good ones have a plan like…
1.1 - listening activity for 10 minutes
1.2 - Discussion on the activity for 10 minutes
1.3 - vocabulary that were generated from 1.1 and 1.2 15 minutes
1.4 - Reading about the topic and delaling with the topic - 15 minutes
homework write about the topic.

I am sure what Dougster meant was that a good book would allow teachers to get away with lesson planning like that and stll sit at the pub on a Friday talking about how great their students are.

16

So we’re calling backpacker assholes teachers now?

17

So we’re calling backpacker assholes teachers now?[/quote]
I’m not doing it :slight_smile:
It’s a conspiracy.