Four Skills Books for General English Classes

It's all about my favorite ESL Textbooks for general, 4-skills English classes. I'm only reviewing books that I've used in my own classes (of course!). For even more of my ESL textbook reviews, check out another site of mine, ESL Textbook Reviews.

The Four Corners Series

If I had only one choice for a 4-skills EFL textbook, this would be it. There are no "throw-away" chapters like in so many of the other books and the activities are interesting and engaging. It's so well designed actually that it's almost impossible for students not to participate. It's communication centered and focuses heavily on speaking, although it does hit the other three skills. Trust me, you won't be disappointed if you choose this book.

The Touchstone Series



I used the Touchstone series a number of years ago and remember hating it: text-heavy pages that were just overwhelming for me, and even more so for the students. However, I'm using it for my conversation classes these days (I had no choice!), but I have to say that they've made the second edition significantly better. There are some solid listening and reading activities, as well as some communicative "free-talking" activities at the back. By book 4, it's serious English so if you have quite high level students, check it out.

The World Link Series

I used this book for about 3 years at my old university and while I was a bit burnt out on it near the end, it really is a solid book. The units are interesting and engaging and are on the simpler side if you have lower-level, or multi-level classes. There just isn't that much text on the page, which is something I appreciate in an ESL textbook. The supplementary teacher's activity book was excellent and I used almost every single activity in it, so make sure you get that as well.
World Link: Teacher's Resource Text Bk. 1

The Smart Choice Series

I used the Smart Choice series a few years ago at my old university for a supplementary program and really enjoyed teaching it. It's grammar, but in a very simple, easy to understand way. It made teaching easy and very minimal prep was required because the book was good enough to just teach straight from it. The students usually seemed to enjoy the topics and it was easy enough to build natural conversations from it.

The Interchange Series



Interchange is one of the most popular 4-skills English as a second language textbooks and for good reason: it's solid. Jack Richards is one of the best ESL textbook writers out there and anything with his name on it is sure to be a good choice. If I was an admin of a program of some kind, I'd look closely at this book.

Serial Podcast for ESL Students

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The Serial Podcast for ESL Students

My latest addiction is the Serial Podcast.  If you haven't heard of it, you are perhaps not really living on planet Earth and you should definitely check it out, but be ready to binge listen because it's crazy addictive.  I'm personally losing some sleep, waiting for episode 10 which was a week late due to American Thanksgiving and have had to start listening to podcasts about the podcast (Slate Serial Spoiler) in order to get my fix.

Anyway, when it came time to decide on something to study with my three, reasonably advanced and motivated students I decided to use this podcast.  I wasn't sure if it would be too difficult for them or not, but with a combination of the transcript (Episode 1 Serial Transcript) and the Podcast itself, they seemed to understand most of it.  They were pretty hooked on it right from the start, with all their papers filled with various colors of highlighter and notes and translations of words into Korean.  I seriously think that they'd studied 10+ hours in only the few days since I'd seen them last.  Our discussion was really interesting and filled with insights about human nature and other good stuff like that.  It was work that didn't really seem like work and it made me feel happy to be a teacher.

If you have high-level students, definitely consider the Serial Podcast.  I'd actually like to do an entire class using just this podcast and hope I have the opportunity in the future.

In case you're looking for more Serial transcripts:

Serial Episode 2 transcript

Serial Episode 3 transcript

What Working at a University in Korea is Really Like. Part 4: Classes (or, what I do for 4 hours)

What Working at a Korean Uni is Really Like

If you missed the first 3 parts of this series, check out:

Korean Universities: Schedules

Korean Universities: Classes

Korean Universities: Office Politics

One of the common questions that I get from Hagwon and public school teachers is what I actually do in my classes.  In hagwons, it's extremely rare to have the same students for more than an hour at a time and 40-45 minutes is more common.  In public schools, the class lengths are about the same and the Korean co-teacher usually does the bulk of the heavy lifting.

My classes range from 1.5 hours-4 hours with the same group of students.  4 hour classes can be quite hard to teach so I'll use that as my example.  Here's how I would I use the time (if I was given no materials that I had to teach):

I'd pick a topic such as "Youth unemployment in Korea," "Microfinance" or "Renewable Energy."  I choose stuff that I'm actually interested in and you'd be surprised-even seemingly difficult topics such as these can be adapted and made easier for as low level as high-beginners.  Things like movies, hobbies, food and pets are TOTALLY overdone and I refuse to use topics like these unless forced to (if I'm given a textbook with them in it, or have extremely low-level students-but I generally try to avoid total beginners!).

Hour 1: an introduction to the topic.  This usually involves some very general warm-up questions, key vocabulary, a sample conversation, or something like "describe the picture" for lower levels.

Hour 2: we get into the reading or listening (quite often both).  If you find articles from Breaking News English, you can do the listening first with some sort of "big-picture" questions.  I'd usually listen twice, with the first time just being simple true/false or matching or something and then the second time, I'd increase the level of difficulty and use some short answer or fill in the blank stuff.

Then, I'd get the students to read the same thing that they just listened to but they'd have to answer some serious "critical thinking" or advanced level "reading comprehension" questions where the answers require processing the information in a deep way, or the answers are very subtle and require some "reading between the lines."

Hour 3: Discussion questions based on what they just listened to and read.  The students would have to discuss in small groups of 3-4 people and then we'd talk together as a class.

Hour 4: Some sort of activity.  For example, when I talked about microfinance, I showed a couple videos from Kiva and showed the students my own portfolio of who I lent money to.

Or, it might involve a debate of some kind.  For example, on the topic of Youth Unemployment, it might be something like, "Who has the final responsibility for solving this problem: youth, the government, parents, industry or universities?"

Or, it could be a survey activity.  For advanced levels, they'd have to make their own survey question or two, ask their classmates, process the information and then report back to the class their results.  For lower levels, I'd probably give them the questions already prepared.

Or, I might do some writing activity of some kind where the students have to share their opinion on the topic.  But, I will quite rarely do this and my activities are generally slanted towards speaking.

The 4-hour killer class

This summer and going on into the fall, I'm teaching in this Internship preparation program where there are 4 hour classes, with the same teacher and same students.  It's a bit killer on the teacher, as well as the students but I try to make it as painless as possible.  The temptation is to just do 2 or 3 different, random things but I try to avoid that if possible and have some sort of coherent theme holding everything together.  Here's the rough sketch of my lesson for today:

Topic: Youth Unemployment.

1. Warm-up riddles.  Lots of students come late so I do some riddles for 5-10 minutes while people stream in.  This was the only unrelated thing.

2. Warm-up discussion questions about youth unemployment.  Talking with a partner and then the whole class together.

3. Reading-first time.  Quickly and some true/false questions. Compare with partner and then whole class.

4. Reading-second time.  Slowly and some difficult comprehension questions.  Talk with partner

5. Youth Unemployment Video-first time.  What is the program?  Talk with partner and then whole class.

6. Video-second time.  Would this program work in Korea?  Talk with partner and then with whole class.

7. Kiva Micofinance Organization.  Show the website and talk about what they do, watch their short video, etc.  Choose someone to "lend" money to.

8. Speech time.  Brainstorm ways to reduce youth unemployment in Korea.  Groups of 4. Each person choose their favorite and prepare a 2 minute speech about why it's the best solution.  Give speech to group and other 3 members must ask a difficult question.

Finish!  It was quite painless overall :)

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Minimum Wage in Korea Lesson Plan

This is a speaking/reading lesson plan for advanced level students.  My class is 2 hours but you could adapt it for shorter or longer, especially if the students read the article before coming to class. 

Should the Minimum Wage be Increased lesson plan.  It's based on this article in the Korea Herald.

Authentic Materials vs. ESL Textbooks for High-Level Students

This semester, I've been teaching all high-level students.  Like high enough level that I generally just talk at a pretty normal pace, but I use somewhat simplified grammar and vocab and my students seem to always be on the same page.  When writing, I don't filter my words at all and just use my normal style.  Many of them have lived overseas, or are preparing for internships in the USA.

And, it seems that almost without exception, they want to use inauthentic material, that is stuff from ESL textbooks.  It's like a kind of crutch I guess and what they've been using for years and what they feel comfortable with.  Except when students are at such a high-level, they actually need authentic material.  Here's why I think so:

1. Students need to be challenged.  Even the highest-level ESL textbooks are actually too easy for most of these students.  And at what point do these extremely high level textbooks become somewhat ridiculous because the students should actually have moved to authentic stuff.

2. Students need confidence.  They need to be shown that they actually can read (and understand) an article from the BBC or Newsweek.  They probably won't read these things on their own, unless you show them that they can actually do it.

3. Students need strategies for when they don't understand everything.  If a student can breeze through a reading in less than a minute, or listen to something once and understand everything, it's not really helpful.  Students need to struggle a little bit, even high-level ones.  They need to adapt and use learning strategies.

4. Even the best designed textbooks are "artificial."  The grammar and vocab always has an element of not so much like real-life.  Authentic materials are real-life.  

5. Authentic materials create in interest in the class.  Which textbook has an article about the Sewol Ferry Disaster?  None of them.  What about Park Geun Hye's recent visit with Angela Merkle?  None of them.  Except these are the topics in the news these days and what students actually want to talk about.  It's actually really helpful to take what the students are talking about in Korean and do it in English, because they actually have a lot of insight and background knowledge about the topics.

IF you must use a textbook, here is one of the better ones:

Renewable Energy Lesson Plan

The article was taken from Breaking News English and you can find the speed reading/listening parts of this lesson on that site.  Here it is: Renewal Energy Lesson Plan.

Comprehensible Input

Stephen Krashen thinks that comprehensible input is the most important factor in learning a language.  Our brains have an LAD (language acquisition device) and our job it to provide input to it, in a low anxiety situation.  Classrooms can give input in a comprehensible way but it's often not interesting.  The real world gives interesting input, but it's often not comprehensible for language learners, especially beginners.  So, classrooms and teachers still have a place in language learning, especially for the beginner.

Comprehensible input can offer language learners a good start, but it's not really appropriate for academic English, or ESP (English for Specific Purposes).  Language learners have to acquire this language in the same way that a Native Speaker would (naturally) because it is actually too complicated to teach it directly.  This language is naturally acquired through extensive, free reading.  For example, starting with comic books, easy novels, progressing to sci-fi books, up to journal articles and then serious textbooks in an area of interest.  There are different paths, but all involve reading, for pleasure. 

Content Classes

This year, I was given a class called, "Open Discussion" or "Advanced Conversation" or "Skillful Speaking."  Who really knows actually.  It was a lost in translation moment.  Anyway, what I took from that was that I could basically just do whatever I wanted, that I would have around 15 students, and that most of them would be somewhat advanced, especially considering that it's an elective class.  I chose to do a "Speech Class," because it was something that I'd never taught before, and that I thought could actually be quite helpful for the students, for their lives, and presentations that they have to do in their other classes.

I love this class for a lot of reasons, but here are a few:

1. The students are actually really into it.  Like they've basically covered every single topic that one could "conversate" about, and so an English class that doesn't involve this is a nice change of pace (for me too!)

2. It's a sneaky way to teach new vocab.  Like I'm sure none of these students knew words like: "gestures, voice inflection, posture," but now they do.

3.  It's also a sneaky way to teach listening/speaking/reading.  They do all of these things each class, but kind of forget they're doing it because the content is the focus. 

4. They take some skills away with them besides English.  Like how to make a good PPT, or how to speak with confidence in front of a group.

ESL Textbook Reviews

That time of year is coming soon....when we'll all get out schedules and see what classes we're teaching and start choosing books and getting organized.  If you need some ideas for ESL textbooks, here are my reviews of the excellent ones to use and the terrible ones to avoid.

Celta Teaching Practice #2

Teaching practice #2 (out of 8) is done!   And another above standard :)  I hope the trend continues.  Anyway, I had to do a reading lesson and found the "Celta way" quite helpful in making an interesting kind of lesson.  Here's what I did:

1. Context.  My article was about waiting in airports, so I introduced the lesson by talking about Incheon and how, although I'm usually impatient I like waiting at Incheon because it's so nice.  Then, the students talked for a couple minutes and thought of 5 things people do in airports while waiting.

2. Pre-Reading Task.  The article was about this guy who stayed in Charles De Gaulle airport for 17 years because he initially had visa/refugee issues but then he liked it so he just stayed.  I gave the students very minimal information (a guy stayed in Paris' airport for 17 years) and asked them to think about some possible reasons why.

3. Skim-Reading Task.  They had a very short time and had to figure out which of their predictions was correct.

4. Main-Reading Task.  They read the article carefully and answered some T/F questions, as well as talked with their partner about 3 good and 3 bad things about this guy's life.

5. Post-Reading Task.  They had to pretend that they could meet the guy in person and come up with some interesting questions they could ask him.  Then, one person pretended to be the guy in the airport and the other one was a newspaper reporter who had to interview him. 

Overall, it went really well and I think I'll definitely use this style of lesson plan for any reading/listening lessons that I do.

A little introduction goes a long way

This week in my Top Notch 1 book, we've been talking about appropriate clothes that you'd wear when traveling.  There was an excellent reading about what to wear in Holland, Thailand and Egypt.  It is actual information taken from real guide-books, which I always like.  Real-life stuff.

The only problem was that the reading was a little difficult, probably bordering right on the edge of most student's abilities.  However, doing an introduction of the concepts can help overcome this.

To start, I wrote on the board conservative and liberal.  The students usually didn't know what they meant, so I had them look them up in their cell-phone dictionaries.  I then had a short class discussion about some examples of conservative clothing (long-skirt/ dark suit) and liberal clothing (tight jeans/mini-skirts).  Once they did that, I added some more words under each category that could be found in the reading, such as "modest" "anything goes" "long-sleeved" "open-toed shoes." I then left this on the board for the students to refer to throughout the activity.

Finally, I pointed out the pictures in the reading.  Students usually fail to notice them.  In this case, the pictures introduced 2 vocab points that were central.  A Thai Temple, and an Egyptian Mosque. 

I gave them a few minutes to do the reading, and encouraged them to use their cell-phones to look up words they didn't know.  I wandered around the class answering questions.  At the end, they closed their books and I did a mini-quiz, asking them 10 questions.  Most groups got 80-100%.  Success!

Chinese students in English class

I've had a few Chinese students in my classes over the years here in Korea, and from my experience, they are either far better than most of the Korean students or far worse.  By far worse, I mean don't know their numbers, colors, and day of the week and don't know what sounds the letters make.  What makes it tricky at my uni is that I teach mostly required classes.  The students have to pass 2 semesters of English to get their degree.  Anyway, how do I deal with these students who really can't read?  I get them to come to my office for some private tutoring once or twice a week for an hour or so and teach them how to read.  This improves the situation considerably and they can at least try to participate in class.  And I give them special, extremely simple tests on the stuff I've worked with them in my office about.  If they do okay, I give them a "D" in the class and they're on their way to bigger and better things.  If they are unwilling to work with me, I'll give them an "F."

Anyway, here is a story from A Geek in Korea about a particularly bad Chinese Student.  My main question would be whether this class is a mandatory one.  If yes, well, then, I can't believe that the Geek didn't show a lot more compassion.  The student hasn't made it his "goal...to fail a class so completely."  He is simply unable to perform to the same abilities as the other students, which is probably no fault of his own.  Maybe this is his first English class ever?

If this class is an optional class and the student signed up for it voluntarily, this changes the situation a bit.  But, the Geek mentioned that the student doesn't really speak Korean either.  So, the uni has to register him in something, and this class was probably one of the only ones even remotely possible.  So, again, a little compassion perhaps?  Have some private sessions with him in your office?  Work with him on his presentation, so he can do it in class without making a total fool of himself in front of his classmates. 

Anyway, poor guy.   And I don't mean the teacher.  I mean the student.  I just hope the teacher isn't as cruel in class to the student as he is in writing about him.

A graded reader listening exercise

I went to a session at the Kotesol National Conference with Paul Nation where he talked about the 10 most effective activities for vocab acquisition.  The list included such things as extensive reading, well-designed book work, intensive reading, and speed reading.

The one thing that most interested me, but that I've never done before is the idea of listening to stories.  The idea is to get a graded reader which is at the student's level and read a bit to them each class.  When the story gets exciting, you end it with a "to be continued."  At the beginning, you can read each sentence 2 times, once slowly, and the second time more quickly.  Write words they may not know on the board.  Towards the end of the book, read each sentence only once and a bit more quickly and it becomes more of a fluency exercise vs. a meaning-focused input one.  He recommended "Of Mice and Men" and "The Phantom of the Opera" in graded reader form.

I plan to do this next semester in all my classes.  Perhaps the last 5 minutes of class or so.  I do like the idea of students reading graded readers on their own, but with 9 classes of 20-25 students this just doesn't seem so feasible (money or logistics wise) for me to carry out, which is why I like the idea of me reading the story to them.  I'll keep you updated with results.

Time Wasting...

...I admit to being a time-waster in my first year teaching at a hagwon (private kindergarten/after-school kind of thing). Like, I'd plan my time in class based upon how I could fill up the minutes in the best way. Educational value was the second priority. Now, it was partly my fault for not reading up on ESL or taking a class before I came to Korea. But, I do remember expressing my frustrations/clueless-ness to the owner of my school and asking for advice and she said, "You speak English, how did you learn it?" Useless.

Anyway, just recently I encountered a teacher showing a movie in their class. They had the door open for some reason, so I stopped for minute to see what they were watching and say hello. The weird thing was that no students were watching. Like they were texting/talking to their friends, doing other homework and some were literally turned around in their seats, with their backs to the screen. The door was probably open because students were wandering in and out. And so I wondered what exactly the purpose was? There didn't seem to be one, except to waste everyone's time and fill up class time in a way that's easy for the teacher.

And so I thought a lot about how I plan my classes. These days, everything I do has a purpose:

I'll usually play a little warm-up game to start and the purpose is usually just that: to get the students thinking, in English, have a little fun and get their attention.

Paired conversations: to practice speaking, listening and asking questions. This is basic in a conversation class.

Readings in the book: usually to introduce new vocabulary, which is vital for improving language skills.

Grammar exercises. Usually a short lesson by me, a written and spoken practice session and then some sort of game or activity. Again, vital for improving language skills.

These are my basic activities in class that I'll do everyday. Other stuff, varies class to class. But these days, I feel like I have too much good stuff to do and not enough time! I wouldn't even imagine showing a movie that didn't have some sort of purpose or goal behind it. And so when you're planning your classes, try to get out of the mindset of wasting time and into the mindset of thinking about what kind of educational value this certain activity has.

On why I don't teach content classes

So at my uni, there are occasionally programs for public school teachers, or various other things where we do "teacher training." Now, I haven't gone to school to learn how to become a teacher, nor do I have any formal training in the ESL Field. Of course, I've read lots of books and articles, and think about it a lot and have 4 years experience. But I would never really pretend to be qualified to teach a teacher training class, or an interview skills class, or something of that sort. I generally will stick to conversation classes, with brief forays into reading and writing and listening, with a bit of grammar teaching mixed in, if required.

Part of the issue is that it's generally just not worth the money. Like I'd need to do a lot of research before doing a teacher training class, so I don't look like a dumb-ass and waste people's time. And there are handouts and stuff. And the $50 or $60/ hour that I would get paid for it just isn't worth the 3 or 4 hours I would need to prepare, plus the one hour that I would actually teach. For a conversation class, I generally prepare for 15 or 20 minutes, for a one hour class.

Anyway, I seem to have just been signed up for a program of this sort, this summer. The joys of my uni. More OT going around than teachers to teach it :) Sigh.

Vocabulary

Check out this book review of Paul Nation's, "Learning Vocabulary in Another Language" for some background information, or better yet, just read the book.

In my own studies of Korean and teaching English, here in Korea I've become increasingly convinced that it's all about vocabulary. The number that gets tossed around frequently is 2000. That is, if you know the 2000 most common words in a language, you can get by with basic conversation and daily life stuff. And of course, this makes sense, because you can know all the grammar but if you don't know the vocab of what you're hearing or reading, you can't make any sense of it. And for writing or speaking, if you don't want to look/sound like a 3 year old, you probably need to know a few more words than they do.

So these days, I've been really into studying vocab, as my form of studying Korean. And now that I know a lot more vocab, grammar is intuitively working itself into my brain as I see and hear the vocab being used around me in the correct grammatical way. I think the best way to learn new vocab is to write out the words on flashcards, with Korean on one side and English on the other. Then start out learning the Korean-English and once you're proficient at that, switch to the harder one, having to reproduce the words in a language that's not your own. Of course, mix up the cards each time you go through them so you don't start to rely on patterns.

And for teaching? I really don't teach vocab in my classes because I'm kind of at a loss as to how to do it. Some stuff comes up in the book each unit, but it's not substantial. And how to test it as well? But I see the importance of it and would like to start. Please help with any ideas!

Running Dictation

...an oldie but a goodie. You put a selected passage outside the classroom or around the classroom, hidden so the students can't see it in plain sight. They will be in teams of 2. One person is the reader, one is the writer. The reader gets up and reads a bit of the passage and comes and tells it to the writer. They go back to remember more of it and so on and so on. About halfway through, I'll yell stop and change up the reader and the writer. When they're done, I'll check their writing and circle any mistakes for them to modify.

I change it a bit, and don't allow yelling as some do. I say that if I can hear their voices, it's too loud and inconsiderate to those teaching next to me and they won't get whatever prize I'm offering. I had one experience last year where a teacher did not state this and it was impossible for me to do anything in my class until the game was done. This was not cool and I don't want to be that teacher that pisses off their coworkers!

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Reading

I find that with some longer reading passages, that if you give the students time to read it in class, many of them won't actually do it, or they'll just skim on through and not put any effort into it and won't be able to remember anything. So I will almost always make it into a game, with some reward at the end. I'll give the students some allotted amount of time to read the passage, and then at the end of that time, they will have to close their books. I will ask questions, based upon the reading and the students will put up their hands if they know the answer. I'll usually pick the first person to put up their hand, and also try to get as many students answering as possible. Correct answer=one point. The one or two students with the most points at the end of the class gets a prize/stamp/whatever reward system you have.

The first time, it's usually only the 4 or 5 top students who will read closely enough to be able to participate. But the next time, almost everyone will be reading closely enough to be able to answer questions.

Textbook Review: "Cause & Effect" and "Thoughts & Notions"

Check out these links  Cause & Effect  and Thoughts & Notions for information about these books. They are from Heinle & Heinle and are designed to work on reading skills. There were also optional writing exercises that I assigned for homework. I used them recently in an intensive, 2 week winter camp at my university and was overall very impressed with them. I would use them again in a university or high school setting without any hesitation. I think they really did expand the active vocabulary of my students in an interesting and engaging kind of way. And it was easy to use them to work on different reading skills, such as skimming or reading for detail. The students, despite working with these books for 3 hours everyday, for 10 days in a row, didn't appear that bored at the end! Cause & Effect particularly had a very high degree of variety in the practice exercises to keep it interesting.

The only drawback that I can really think of is that the end of the books is significantly harder than the beginning, particularly Thoughts & Notions. While this is okay for a class that happens over a semester, it didn't really work that well in an intensive camp setting because the students wouldn't really have time to master the material between sessions and just got kind of lost at the end.