Looking for a British/Commonwealth Based Curriculum

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

I’m looking for a decent curriculum (different levels and ages if possible as I’m teaching/will be teaching different levels and ages) that uses British/Commonwealth spellings, and preferably doesn’t use that annoying kk. Anyone have any suggestions? Does anyone know a store (in Taipei) that might have such materials that I could have a look at? I could go so far as to start writing my own, but I have little experience in such things, and so would rather get something that’s already published.

Thanks in advance.

2

http://www.shane.com.tw/en/

Hi,

British English is taught at Shane.

Hope this helps.

L.

3

Ew, they still have an ancient pic of me on that site…

4

Thanks. I’m looking for some books I can either buy at an ESL/EFL bookstore, or from an online supplier.

5

So you want book recommendations?

6

Yes. Please.

7

Excuse me, I forgot about this post.

It’s a little difficult to recommend a series of books for all ages, as they will almost certainly be ‘wrong’ for most of those age groups. Kids’ cognitive and social abilities are very different, as they develop and books are generally written to appeal to a 3-4 year age spread at most. Few kids series’ go far beyond an intermediate level, also.

Caves in Taipei have a ‘British English’ section. OUP, CUP and Longman are generally of good quality.

Don’t forget, though, a book isn’t a curriculum and nothing covers everything. It may be a good idea to approach it from the angle of ‘what am I trying to achieve?’, rather than which is the book for me.

You probably need to supplement a general course book with graded readers; look at OUP and Penguin stuff.

Stuff I Like

Elementary
Happy House/Happy Street/Happy Earth (OUP)
Dolphin/Bookworms Readers (OUP)
Backpack (longman) looks promising but never used it.

Teens
English In Mind (CUP)
New Opportunities (Longman)
Energy (Longman) not bad.
Bookworms (OUP)

Adults
Cutting Edge (Longman) For beginner to Int
Headway (OUP) Upper Int/Advanced
English File (OUP) is not bad

hope that helps/is not too late.

8

Buttercup: Thanks for that. That’s fantastic.

At this stage, I’m just seeing what’s out there. I have no fixed ideas about anything (other than that I want British/Commonwealth books). I currently teach a group of adults, and I’m using a combination of materials I make myself and a magazine, but I’m not so keen on using magazines. When the current set of lessons (that they’ve paid for) finish, I may suggest to them that we move towards using a structured series of books if they’re interested. Some of my adults may want me to teach their children too, so I’m considering putting together one or more children’s classes also.