Textbooks for kids

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

I need to reccommend some textbooks for kindergarten and maybe elementary students as well. I’m really keen to hear from those of you who have used or seen several and are able to compare. Also anyone used some that are particularly good or bad. I want something that can be used xiao ban through da ban, with songs etc as well. Lesson plans, teacher’s manual stuff not necessary, as I will write those myself. Just, syllabus, songs, materials really.

Here’s my own experience to offer:

Balloons: Pretty well structured syllabus (As far as introduction and building on vocab and grammar etc goes). Workbooks, don’t know becuase I don’t use them. Lesson plans next to useless. Songs and chants lousy.

Maxy and Mousy. Crap, except for really good songs (which I think are important).

Haven’t used anything else sorry. That’s why I would like to hear. How’s Let’s Go?

Bri

2

Does anyone have an answer for the Chairman ?

3

I’d recommend: SMILE seriesby Macmillan. It goes up to level 6

GOGO Loves English is Longman’s international best seller and a teachers’ favourite.

Ladybirdbooks are excellent for phonics and activities.

Let’s Goseries, by OUP is very popular in Japan.
English Time for primary school ages, and Magic Timefor kindy.

Keypalsout of Japan, is presently being adapted for the Taiwan market and should be available by next spring. It’s hip and fresh, personalised, and good for primary ages.

Bri, you’re welcome to contact me at lori@segue.com.
I should be able to help you find the kinds of books you’re looking for.

4

I have used the “Up and Away” series, I think they’re Oxford University Press. Caves Bookstores carries a lot of stock and you can usually get hold of them. The reading books are really beautifully drawn and the stories are interesting.

5

I just want to revive this topic, becuase being involved in teacher recruiting now, I sometimes get asked by my clients (mostly kindy), for a textbook recommendation, and I want to say something better than “I think they’re mostly rubbish”.

How about the Ladder book’s? Anyone used them? Also, Alien mentioned ‘Magic Time’ and they seemd OK. Has anyone used them? I’m really interested in how good the ‘progression’ of vocabulary and grammar is, how good the workbooks are and how good the songs are.

Any little pieces of information would be useful.

Brian

6

Alien, I take it Caves is totally re-doing the Keypals, because the originals seemed rather limited. You seem very excited about it. Are you working on it?

7

Of course, ckvw. But not exclusively!
They’re keeping the original structure, but varying the content to what they deem suitable for Taiwan, which is a marketing move rather than a pedagogic one. :wink:
Practical textbooks for practical teachers…

8

Trust me, this is the best:
Kernan, Doris. Steps to English. New York; Montreal: McGraw-Hill, 1983. Books 1-6 in the series.

Everything else is just a fake.

9

OK, I researched all the kindergarten general textbooks I could find in Taiwan, and here’s my report:

I think the best are SuperTots and Hairy Harry.

The Hairy Harry series (2002) is produced by Ladder, the publishing company affiliated (or owned by, or owning or something) to the Sesame Street franchise in Taiwan. It is written in Taiwan. This series of books is very detailed and thus suitable for ‘whole English’ or ‘immersion’ classes with at least 10 English lessons a week. There is one level for each semester of kindergarten - K1 (xiao ban) through K3 (da ban). Each of the six levels has 2 student books, 2 workbooks, 2 cassettes, an English teacher’s manual, a Chinese teacher’s manual, flashcards, small cards, wall charts and other material. The teacher’s manuals have a lot of lesson plans.

The SuperTots series is published by Longman and written in the USA for the Asian market. There are only three levels with 8 units in each for three years, so it is suitable for a ‘bilingual’ class with 5 or less English lessons a week. Each level of kindergarten has student’s book, workbook, casettes, flashcards and English teacher’s manual.

If you ever have to recommend books for your kindergarten, I think these are the best choices. My company has just signed distribution contracts with both publishers, so if you want a discount, please contact me at eznfunenglish@hotmail.com (incidentally I’m not saying that these are the best becuase we’ve got distribution contracts with them, rather, we signed the contracts with them, because we think they’re the best).

Brian

10

For grammar practice, I like to use [color=red]Grammar Lab[/color]; the books are longer, allow more practice and are quite funny, especially for the 8-12 age group. They’re colourfully illustrated and have interesting characters (though I guess that doesn’t make them unique). Some of the exercises allow for other activities, such as generated dialogues, etc. It uses British English but shouldn’t interfere with any American material that you may be using as your core material, though you may have to explain some differences.

[color=red]Roundup[/color] is another great grammar series. It’s more serious and drill-oriented, for students who benefit from focus and/or lesson-specific practice. It’s main selling point is that it constantly reinforces what has already been learned unlike so many books which teach, drill and forget. It has a much more British focus than the Grammar Lab, and because it’s comprehensive, you may want to use it in conjunction with British material. My criticism of Roundup is that as you get into the higher levels, the blanks for the exercises are too small for any normal-sized human with a normal-sized pen or pencil to use.

Both of these series are suggestions for grammar ONLY. If you’re looking for a comprehensive book, try something printed in GB, the USA or Canada as they tend to be more effective than some of the local material (although there could be great stuff that I just haven’t encountered yet…)

11

I think the “Smile” series is absolute crap. I’m using the “Beeline Plus” series right now, and I like it a lot. It includes a student book, workbook, scrapbook (for art activities and the like), and two CD’s. Much better than a lot of the stuff I’ve seen before.

12

East West Publications anyone?

Suck or not?

13

Oh lord, this list of books being brought up just breaks my heart. :cry:

14

I know it :smiling_imp:

I was trolling again to get the good information.

A troll once in a while brings out some real gems.

Shame about this thread though. :imp:

15

Bu Lai En, are you setting up an English-instruction, bilingual instruction, bilingual-immersion, or English-immersion program for your new school? What ages are you planning to take in? How are you dividing up the children?

16

Whatever you choose, make sure that you choose books that are perennial sellers if you are designing a program. We used Popcorn for quite a while with our advanced students. Then we found out that it was going out of print, sadly.

Don’t invest in designing a course using textbooks that may not be available tomorrow. I’ve been burned! I know it’s obvious, but…

Kenneth

17

I want to revive this old thread as I’m being asked to recommend books and write supplementary material for the coming semester of my pre-school/kindy classes. Here’s the low-down: Two classes, full English immersion, both about 16 in size, 22 hours of instruction a week, of which 4 or so in total will be Maths/Science/PE/Art. One class will be 4/5 year olds, the other 6/7 year olds.

I like Smart Kids because it looks (and is) current and colorful. It has flash cards/songs/phonics/workbooks and, a big plus, its both local with coverage of the local festival days, as well as international, with Easter, Christmas, Mothers Day, Father’s day etc. It also has a nice unit on the move from kindergarten to the big scary world of elementary school.

I note that others have their likes. Can anyone confirm or deny the following positive reports are still good.

[quote]OK, I researched all the kindergarten general textbooks I could find in Taiwan, and here’s my report:

I think the best are SuperTots and Hairy Harry.

The Hairy Harry series (2002) is produced by Ladder, the publishing company affiliated (or owned by, or owning or something) to the Sesame Street franchise in Taiwan. It is written in Taiwan. This series of books is very detailed and thus suitable for ‘whole English’ or ‘immersion’ classes with at least 10 English lessons a week. There is one level for each semester of kindergarten - K1 (xiao ban) through K3 (da ban). Each of the six levels has 2 student books, 2 workbooks, 2 cassettes, an English teacher’s manual, a Chinese teacher’s manual, flashcards, small cards, wall charts and other material. The teacher’s manuals have a lot of lesson plans.

The SuperTots series is published by Longman and written in the USA for the Asian market. There are only three levels with 8 units in each for three years, so it is suitable for a ‘bilingual’ class with 5 or less English lessons a week. Each level of kindergarten has student’s book, workbook, casettes, flashcards and English teacher’s manual.

If you ever have to recommend books for your kindergarten, I think these are the best choices. My company has just signed distribution contracts with both publishers, so if you want a discount, please contact me at eznfunenglish@hotmail.com (incidentally I’m not saying that these are the best becuase we’ve got distribution contracts with them, rather, we signed the contracts with them, because we think they’re the best).[/quote]

or this:

[quote]I’d recommend: SMILE series by Macmillan. It goes up to level 6

GOGO Loves English is Longman’s international best seller and a teachers’ favourite.

Ladybird books are excellent for phonics and activities.

Let’s Go series, by OUP is very popular in Japan.
English Time for primary school ages, and Magic Time for kindy.

Keypals out of Japan, is presently being adapted for the Taiwan market and should be available by next spring. It’s hip and fresh, personalised, and good for primary ages.[/quote]

Any thoughts and recommendations are welcome.

18

Just a couple weeks ago, there was a [url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/ladder-international-publishing-finally-bites-the-dust/37914/1 about Ladder Publishing[/url] closing its doors. Just thought I’d mention that, since the first quote refers to the Hairy Harry series, which I’d assume is going to be out of print if it’s not already.

Ages 6-7 doing 22 hours a week should be ready for Calvert, see the [url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/calvert-program/25779/1 thread[/url], a US homeschooling program available in Taiwan. Kids in the US can study Calvert instead of going to school (homeschooling). If your students have been doing English immersion for a year or two, I think they can make great breakthroughs with Calvert, but they should definitely continue studying with the program after finishing kindy; they will be ready for 1st grade Calvert if they’re not already. You know you can’t iron out all their grammar errors by first or second grade even with US curriculum, but your students can definitely be reading at or above their US grade level. It might not work for everyone, but it works for me…

19

Thanks for the heads up about Ladder, twocs, and the Calvert link; the program might be more involved than my school wants to get into but worth a look for sure.

My classes are both beginner classes with no previous English experience btw.

20

I guess Calvert’s no good if they’ve got no experience…