Is it just I lack creativity and am a less then average teacher or is this textbook really weak? (especially 1 and 2). I really dislike the “Yes, I can”. and “No, I don’t”. type replies. A full answer is much better and easier for a language learner to understand.
A lot of people seem to enjoy teaching from this text and I definitely seem to be in a minority in my school.
[quote=“Matchstick_man”]Is it just I lack creativity and am a less then average teacher or is this textbook really weak? (especially 1 and 2). I really dislike the “Yes, I can”. and “No, I don’t”. type replies. A full answer is much better and easier for a language learner to understand.
A lot of people seem to enjoy teaching from this text and I definitely seem to be in a minority in my school.[/quote]
Compared to other textbooks I’ve used, it’s quite good.
By the way, they teach short replies like “Yes, I can.” and “No, I don’t.” because these short replies are what native speakers say. The correct reply to a question like “Can you swim?” is “Yes.” or “Yes, I can.” It is certainly not “Yes, I can swim.” IMO there is no point teaching, or in fact forcing, students to say sentences that a native speaker would not use and that they will never hear.
LET’S GO SUCK.my school changed from Let’s go to Beeline.It’s much better.
I’ve used the lets go books or in the class and with privates. It’s good for vocab but does lac on sentence patterns. I always created my own senence patterns.
ie “What do you want to buy?” could be “how much does it cost?”
I also change the verb tenses.
Sorry but the short replies aren’t the only replies native speakers use. “Do you want fries ? No, I don’t want fries.” Often with an expletive added is a common conversation a McDonalds worker may hear in the English speaking world. Often a native speaker will offer much more information than No, I can’t. or Yes, I do. as a reply to a question in a general conversation. I find the students at my school are really weak at conversational English due to the lack of sentence patterns within these texts.
Very true MM but the kids gotta start somewhere. I found the lets go book was a great starter for very basic English convo.
When I first used the book I thought it was a bit drap but then started useing it in differnt ways.
I concentrated on verb tenses which so many students lac.I find many stundents have trouble asking and answering simple questions.I don’t know the exact level of your students but this is what I did with the book and it worked quite well.
ie Q Where (did) you go on the weekend?
I (went) to the movie theater.
Q What movie (did) you see?
I (saw) Harry Potter 2.
Q Where are you (going) next weekend?
I am (going) to the department store.
Q Why are you (going) to the department store?
I want to buy some sneekers.
My teaching method was to drill the hell out of them of course in a fun enviornment.
After a while the studnets were able to tell me when and where they went and what they did.
Hope this is of some help to u.
Yes, I do and No, I can’t are just the basics. They are part of the foundation of the language. There is no need to expand too far beyond them until the kids have pretty well mastered them. Students often progress slowly because teachers just touch lightly on the basics. This, in my opinion, is a huge mistake.
IMHO, it’s not the sentence patterns that are weak in books 1 and 2. It’s that they teach similliar sounding sentences too close together. For example:
What are they? They are pencils.
How many pencils are there? There are 2 pencils.
The difference between ‘They are’ and ‘there are’ is really challenging for beginners, but Let’s go 1 puts them together. Is this just a problem for Taiwanese learners?
Also, the way the past tense is introduced in book 3 is not very clear and could be improved.
On the whole I like using the Let’s go series because it seems to be the most comprehensive language learning package out on the market. Let’s Go integrates it’s texts with flashcards, cds and tapes, readers, workbooks, grammar workbooks, and a student dictionary that expands on the vocabulary taught in the series.
Hans
[quote]The difference between ‘They are’ and ‘there are’ is really challenging for beginners, but Let’s go 1 puts them together. Is this just a problem for Taiwanese learners?
[/quote]
Good idea, if you ask me. Put them together so that you can stress the differences.
The book’s not that important. Let’s Go is usable. (It’s certainly better than Beeline that someone mentioned). Unless you write it yourself, you’re not going to have a book exactly suitable for your teaching style, and the level of the kids you teach. Use the book as a starting point. Omit, change and add as necessary.
Brian
Let’s Go finishes at level 6 - what would you recommend when my students finish it? They are about 8-10. My school is hassling me to choose the next book even though we’ve got 4 months left.
I use a collection of books and have good reasons for doing so. I hope.
Superkids books 1 and 2 for the beginning classes. That is grades one and two students. These books provide useful accelerated vocabulary and are listening and speaking based. That means the students are not buried in writing from the beginning as is the case with Let’s Go. I run a parellel phonics and grammar program that introduces graded writing and reading skills.
I then switch to Let’s Go at book 3. It has a solid grammatical foundation and makes an easy transition into the basic writing skills. I continue to run a seperate grammar program and phonics program with additional reading. I stick with Let’s Go to book 5. However, Let’s Go is very weak on vocabulary and reading development so I add through the reading program a lot of new vocab.
After Let’s Go 5 I switch to Beeline 4. Beeline is designed for learners outside Asia. It is a good series but it overloads Taiwanese learners that don’t have a strong foundation and a lot of English input. However, by this stage I think the students are more than ready for it and they breeze through the activities. I then complete the Beeline series all the time running my own seperate reading and grammar program. By this stage the grammar program has morphed into a writing program.
Ultimately at the end of all this I focus on writing. After years of speaking in the classroom the students are usually proficent speakers, their listening skills are fine and their reading skills are very high. In addition, as writing, for most students, is likely to be the most important skill they will ever need to master in English and because preperation for writing assignments involes the other three skills anyway, this is what I focus the higher level students on. Of course when you teach writing, there is no limit.
I’ve been using “Let’s Go” off and on for about 5 years now and in my opinion it’s the best thing out there. If you use the teachers manual, flash cards, readers game books, and everything else in the series it can easily make up an entire curriculm.
I don’t think it’s all you should teach but it’s a good base to start with. It shouldnt be more than 30% of the class. It also seems to be geared towards non-native speakers teaching other non-native speakers.
My school is trading “let’s go” for a local “let’s go” copy. It’s a big mistake but the managment’s plan is to hope not too many people complain and eventualy they will forget about it. they say they don’t want to use what everybody else is using. They want to be different and stand out. I told them they will stand out allright but for the wrong reason.