Archive for the ‘textbooks’ Category

Bored of Xmas before it’s even arrived as usual, so here comes with the New Year theme ones instead:

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When I think back on the many conversations I have had in the teachers’ room about English language textbooks, photocopiable resource books etc. over the years, I can remember quite a few amusing ones (e.g. the American teacher stunned at having to teach the “stupid American tourists” listening and the “Why British food is so great” reading in Headway all in the same month), many impassioned speeches, a bit of polite disagreement and a lot of commiserating. I can hardly remember a single example of learning something new about the textbook we were talking about or having my opinion changed, however. In a similar way, the CTEFLA session I gave where we taught the trainees how to analyse a textbook in detail and then they all chose their favourite just from appearances was without a doubt the least productive input session of I have ever given. So, is it possible for a conversation or written review to be any more helpful in deciding which TEFL books are better for your classes or school than a “my favourite model is better looking than yours” blog entry or a “my team is better than yours” chat down the pub? (more…)

With my TEFL.net Reviews Editor hat on, I will be giving a workshop at the Tokyo ETJ Expo and Tokyo English Language Book Fair at Toyo Gakuen University at 3:30pm on Sunday 4 November. When I say ”hat on”, I don’t mean that literally, despite the photos on TEFL.net. In fact, for people who only know me from here this might be your only chance to see me without a hat! (unless there are spotlights, in which case I might have to wear a hat to save too much shine off the bald patches). (more…)

I don’t know if anyone has coined the term “desperation googling” yet, but that is the only description for what I have just been doing. My (fairly typical in Japan) Business English class that don’t really want to study Business English had been told that they were going to get the book this week (International Express Intermediate New Edition- yuck!) because I couldn’t think of a single other practice speaking activity for the Past Perfect and Past Continuous. And then I realised that I’d left the textbook at head office… (more…)

A few posts ago I promised to dish the dirt on the world of the reviews of English teaching materials, a part of the biz that I have been involved in in various ways for 8 years or so now. Apart from the difficulty of knowing how much that person’s opinion should matter to you in your teaching situation (something reviewers can try to deal with by stating at the end of the review who the materials might be suitable for, but that of course is just an opinion too), if you don’t know much about the person writing the review and/ or the publication it is in it isn’t as easy to choose the suitable pinch of salt as it is when reading the Guardian (take all their views, move 15 degrees to the right and there you have the truth) or right wing radio shows (mirror image of same). Here are some of my own experiences that might give you some idea of how that kind of research might be worth your while before trusting the reviewer and buying a new textbook:

In the worst example I have been personally involved in, a well known TEFL magazine contacted me to ask me if (more…)

I seem to be writing a lot of posts about why I am not writing posts recently (?), and here comes another one:

As it mentions somewhere on this page, I am the (volunteer) editor of the review pages on this site, and over the last 6 or 7 years we have managed to build it up until it is one of the most comprehensive guides to EFL materials on the web- and all much more independant than some other places that review materials I might dish the dirt on at some point.

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Question from a reader that I am pondering my answer to- can anyone else help while she is waiting? 

“I’m from Bosnia and Hercegovina, and I’ve been teaching English to very small children, age 4-6 and this year I decided to use Cookie and Friends A. I ordered the books, CD, teacher’s book and play pack. But the problem is the delivery.. I’ll get the books maybe in 20-30 days and I’m starting to teach on Monday! So, I must do something interesting with them for about 6-8 times untill the books arrive (we have classes twice a week, and it last for half an hour). Please give me some ideas so that they don’t lose interest in course untill the books arrive. I was trying to find some sample pages of Cookie and friend on the Internet but I haven’t found anything.
p.s. I’m 23 and I have only one year of experience with such small children, it’s fun, i love it, but it’s hard to hope you understand, and I hope my English is good.
 
Thank you very much, Ana”

Any advice at all would be much welcomed I’m sure. Any thoughts guys?

Sorry that it’s all worksheets worksheets worksheets recently, but what can I say- that’s exactly how I’m starting to feel writing them all…

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-ielts-speaking-sports-verbs-play-do-go-go-to/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-ielts-speaking-subject-questions/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-ielts-speaking-tense-review/

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets-ielts-speaking-work-prepostions-nounprep-collocations/

As well as practising the exam, the worksheets are all designed to fit in with the syllabus of Face2Face Pre-Intermediate, which is a textbook I hate much less than any other I’ve used recently!

So, Takeshi Kitano wins another film award at an arty festival, along no doubt with a whole load of other unwatchable crap. There are a few specifically Beat Takeshi points worth making here, such as: if the judges just watched some Japanese TV before watching his films they would realise that meandering plots, lack of action, bizarre switches from drama to comedy and characters who don’t express their feelings are not fabulously avant garde film making tricks but available for you to watch, should you be M*, on any Japanese TV drama.

There is also a more important and generalised point to make about film critics. If you really want to read through their reviews and awards and find something you are going to like, you need to learn to predict what they are likely to enjoy.

Let’s analyse them together for a bit, shall we? The average movie critic spends most of their time watching hundreds and hundreds of movies in a cinema round the corner from their house, when quite often they would quite frankly rather be sitting on a hillside thinking about their own life or putting their backpack on and going somewhere new. So, when you read their review, as well as the possibility it is actually a masterpiece you will appreciate too you also have to take account of the possibility that they only like it because:

• So little happens that they do indeed get time to think about their own lives as if they were sitting on top of that hill (e.g. Hanabi)
• There are lots of references to other films that they like because it makes them seem so intelligent and makes all that time watching movies seem worthwhile, but us ordinary mortals will miss (any Tarantino film)
• There is a plot so fiendishly difficult and bizarre that even they can’t work out what is going to happen, but leaves the rest of us just confused (Memento)
• They get to see something else, maybe exotic, that they’ve never seen before (e.g. the Forbidden City in Last Emperor) but that the rest of us who are not trapped in a dark room would do much better just going and seeing in real life
• Because they don’t get time to read books they use subtitled films as a substitute

As I’ve said, the really difficult bit is not dismissing a review just because it does fit into one of those categories (I like one of the ones in brackets above), but I still find it helps me totally dismiss a good 70% of glowing reviews as something I am unlikely to enjoy.

Although I started this post mainly as an excuse to heap scorn upon “the man with two names involving Takeshi”, the same technique actually works as a rough and ready analysis of theories on how to teach a language. For example, if we look at the kinds of people who come up with wacky new ideas on how to teach English and those who then going around spreading the “good word”, we find that many of them have already been teaching for far too many years to be healthy. Of course they need something new to revitalise their classroom routines after 20 years, but it doesn’t mean the rest of us need it too… There are many examples of this, of which Scott Thornbury’s Dogme is probably the most obvious example of something only for people in the 40s or above.

We can then narrow the focus down to proponents of specific theories. For example, if you look into the dark past of many of the teachers who now preach TBA (the Task-based Approach), you will find they were once converts to a hard-core version of the Communicative Approach which involved no actual teaching of grammar at all. If you like that, might be worth a look. If not, you have to ask yourself why such people are so keen on it.

And for my final trick, I will narrow it down to one man. If you want to understand why the Lexical Approach has resulted in page after page of theoretically useful but painfully dull teaching material (e.g. the most unteachable parts, amongst many, of Cutting Edge), try looking at Michael Lewis’s earlier theories on how to teach grammar. Enthusing to a teacher (I was a believer too!), especially a logically-minded one, but totally unmotivating to the learners.

I rest my case**

* A fabulous “Japanese English” expression, meaning the “M” from “S&M”

** Yes, I see the pun on my name. So not funny!

“(Rod Ellis) recommends holding off teaching grammar to beginning students because the early stages of acquisition are primarily lexically rather than grammatically based and because of the evidence from immersion programs that learners are able to acquire word order and ’salient inflection’ without direct instruction” Nick C. Ellis in Form-focused Instruction and Teacher Education- Studies in honour of Rod Ellis
Makes a lot of sense to me. This might be a good place also to make a mention of New Inside Out Beginner (Macmillan), which I had a thorough look at yesterday and was mighty impressed by. It manages to fit in easy bits that are often missed out even at this low level (e.g. colours) and useful language that doesn’t usually get covered properly at any level (e.g. What is your favourite…?/ What is your dream job?) without having the usual bittiness of books that try to fit too many points in (e.g. Natural English).