Advice on textbooks and curriculum outline?

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motema15
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Advice on textbooks and curriculum outline?

Unread post by motema15 »

Hi

I'm doing some volunteering at a primary school in Nepal.

The English books provided by the Nepali government are really hopeless, and it's difficult for the volunteer teachers to use them, or even to get a sequence of what topics need to be taught from them. I was wondering, does anyone know of a website or book that gives an overview of the topics/grammar points that should be taught to primary school children learning ESL? We would like to at least do a yearly curriculum outline for the volunteers so they know what to teach, and in what order.

My second question is about books. We'd like to buy some more useful books, but the problem is that a school like this can't afford to buy western-style coursebooks with student books for each child. Does anyone know of a series where we could buy just the teacher's book, and use this for teaching the kids? Or a single book we could buy that would give a good outline of a primary school curriculum?

thanks so much!
Emma
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Lucy
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Re: Advice on textbooks and curriculum outline?

Unread post by Lucy »

Hi,

If you're short of money, I suggest buying a few story books that are suitable to the age group. In class, read the stories and build activities around them. eg pick a set of vocabulary from the story and work on that through games, songs and simple role play. Books by Andrew Wright and Gail Ellis will help you with this. I'm sure you'll be able to pick these up cheaply on amazon or elsewhere. The beauty of story books is you only need one for the whole class. And of course, they don't have to be new; second hand is cheaper and just as good. These books don't need to be aimed at EFL students. You can use books written for mother tongue English children. Try to choose one that is big enough for everyone to see.

You shouldn't be trying to teach grammar to primary children; children of that age don't learn that way.

Please look through this forum (helpdesk), I've written many posts on how to use stories with primary age children. And feel free to write in again with more questions.

All the best,

Lucy
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