Books to teach EFL

Question

Can anyone recommend a credible book for teaching EFL? What there is on offer is garbage, apparently designed to confuse.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

Keith (Email Removed) wrote on 26 Mar 2005:
[nq:1]Can anyone recommend a credible book for teaching EFL? What there is on offer is garbage, apparently designed to confuse.[/nq]
Only the book of personal experience. If you think you're qualified to make such a judgment about what is on offer, then you ought to be already expert enough to know this. It's not that I disagree with your judgment, only that I haven't yet got around to writing my own book.

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
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Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Can anyone recommend a credible book for teaching EFL? What there is on offer is garbage, apparently designed to confuse.[/nq]
Check local public & university libraries for EFL/ESL/TESL/TESOL.

You should be able to find a short, common sense text that covers general principles.
Once you actually take an EFL/ESL job you're usually stuck with texts & workbooks that the local institution mandates.

Usenet · Answer

Wait a minute...do you mean a book about how to teach English or a textbook that you would use to teach English to someone?

For the former, if you have no training whatsoever, no experience teaching English whatsoever and work *** knows where, you might want to read Jeremy Harmer's How to Teach English . It's a pretty good introduction to the rules of the game, even though you probably won't think so at the time (I sure didn't), and I'm sure that many of the US-based instructors in this group could recommend another basic do-it-yourself methodology book.
For the latter, well, I agree with everyone else on this thread. It's basically up to you, but there are some things you can do. There's actually an excellent book (in my view) out there on the subject Choosing Your Coursebook , by Alan Cunningsworth, Macmillan, 1995.

Most textbooks come with a teacher's book, which is basically a detailed list of procedures on how to teach every section of the book, written by either the writer of the textbook or some other more-or-less qualified writer/teacher. They're not always perfect or even usable, but they're better than nothing. Your attitude may spring from a bad teacher's book.
Most beginning teachers, as has been pointed out in the thread, don't get much of a say in picking a textbook or choosing supplementary materials. The academic director of the institution almost always handles that choice. You are very rarely allowed to provide real input regarding that decision until you've proved yourself over the course of a year or more of teaching.
Then again, your new boss could have reacted negatively to your very definite ideas regarding any and all teaching materials. This person might have gloriously screwed you, by telling you to go find your own damned book (it's happened). Ask around and see what someone else working in the area uses, at your level with your types of learners. Be nice.
Another possibility: you're running your first private lesson to supplement your meager income, and if you don't work this private, you'll be out on the streets in some corner of the world a million miles from home. Ain't this a grand profession? Once again, the same advice applies, particularly the second part.
I have never met an English language teacher who particularly liked ELT textbooks. I have never met a writer who is completely satisifed with what she or he has written. Publishers and publisher's mouthpieces, of course, will do their best to convince you that their books are the best thing next to manna from heaven.
After about five years of punching the clock on this job, doing the professional training, writing up lesson plans, thinking about what your students need help in, bustin' da move, you will probably be able to write your own textbook, but by then, your view of textbooks will have changed. You will look at them as collections of materials that you can use any way that suits you or adapt whenever required. You'll be able to teach any major point of a grammar syllabus off the top of your head if you have to, you'll know typical learner problems with vocabulary, all kinds of good stuff. You'll look back at this troubled time, laugh, and remember the good times...those salad days of yore.

It is not a coincidence that a lot of ELTs throw in the towel sometime during those first five years. I heard a statistic somewhere that half of us quit in the first and second year in the developing world, but that's hearsay.
It may be even more!

Usenet · Answer

On 26 Mar 2005 11:43:19 -0800, "credoquaabsurdum"
[nq:1]Wait a minute...do you mean a book about how to teach English or a textbook that you would use to ... us quit in the first and second year in the developing world, but that's hearsay. It may be even more![/nq]
I'm already a teacher, and the supply of acceptable books has dried up. Students returning from England, advised by me to visit Bath ('Bahth'), were met with English incomprehension, until it finally dawned that what was wanted was, 'Oh, Baff!'
Another who said 'velocity' was gravely assured by adults that word did not exist.
When we see who is managing this descent of the young and not so young into the required bovine mentalty and why, then we can see also why books are not available except to stunt.
But thanks for your advice. I'll work on it. But it seems there's no alternative to doing without books or writing our own.

Usenet · Answer

It seems to me that your students (two students?) had problems with pronunciation. Personally, I wouldn't expect a coursebook to teach pronunciation: it's too interactive to be learned from a tape. I'm assuming that the 'velocity' thing might also have been a pronunciation problem, or maybe your student really did hit on an English person who didn't know the word. So what? Isn't this a good talking point, too?

I taught English for long enough to hate coursebooks, too, but I still recognise that they have their place in teaching. It's up to the teacher to plug what they feel are the gaping holes and do the best they can. Part of this involves connecting the coursebook and classroom to reality: I wouldn't expect a coursebook to do that for me.

My five pence,
Jan

Usenet · Answer

This is my second year of teaching and I have fallen madly in love with the Language to Go coursebook series.
Using one of these books as a backbone, I have been able to create courses that are dynamic, challenging, engaging, and fun.
The Inside Out series is good for adults.
I know many teachers who despise coursebooks, many of them more experienced than myself. But for a beginner teacher, coursebooks provide a strong foundation.

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