Top 5 Books for Beginner English Teachers

If you're looking to bone up on your knowledge about teaching English before you head abroad, check out my top 5 books for the ESL teacher just getting started. Of course, it's better to take a course like the Celta, but reading a few books is obviously better than nothing.



How To Teach Englishby Jeremy Harmer

How to Teach English by Jeremy Harmer is a classic and should be the first book you read on the topic. It's extremely well-organized into short sections, assumes that you know nothing and also gives some very practical advice and some activities to help get up and running for your first few weeks in the classroom.

Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching by Jack C. Richards

While more theoretical than the Harmer book, this one can provide you with a solid foundation of the  major approaches for language teaching.  It's perfect for the ESL teacher who is already confident in the classroom, but needs some knowledge about the specifics of teaching English as a Second Language

Speaking Activities That Don't Suckby English Teacher X

Speaking Activities that Don't Suck by English Teacher X is an excellent speaking games and activities resources for the beginner teacher before they walk into the classroom with nothing. When I was just starting out, I always tried to have a few speaking activities in my folder or in my head that I could pull out if required. This book will help you with that in an interesting, engaging kind of way.

Grammar Slammer: How to Explain the Hard Stuff and Impress Difficult and Demanding Students by English Teacher X

If you're clueless about English grammar like most native English speakers, this book will be your new best friend. Before you walk into a classroom, it's wise to have a basic idea of what you're doing and this book will teach you, but in the least boring way I've ever seen.

How To Teach Speakingby Scott Thornbury

Most newbie teachers will primarily end up teaching speaking and conversation so "How to Teach Speaking" by Scott Thornbury will give you a leg up on the competition. It does a great job of covering the theory, but also gives a wealth of practical advice and information that you can use in the classroom.

An A-Z of ELT- Scott Thornbury (Short Book Review)

I bought this book for when I was doing the Delta course and found it invaluable.  There are entries for any and all English as a second language, or English as a foreign language related things.  Some random examples are: connected speech, deductive learning, dogme ELT, pairwork, and reflective teaching. I like this book so much because the entries are short, concise and just give you the basic details you need to know without all the fluff.  It's the perfect entry into a topic before you start digging further because it can give you a framework from which to work.

Plus, it's HIGHLY quotable for any kind of research paper that you're doing.  I can't recommend it enough for any English language teacher.

Textbooks: it's a toss-up

I remember back in the olden days when I was just starting out as a teacher, I felt like I NEEDED a textbook, because without it, what could I possibly do in class to fill the time? It just seemed so complicated and stressful to have to figure out what the students needed and were interested in and then design my own materials.  But, as I've become a more experienced teacher, the less I've relied upon textbooks and if given a choice, there's probably a 50-50 chance of whether I'll use a textbook for a given class or not. 

I'll generally use a textbook in the following situations:

1. I'm inexperienced in teaching the subject matter.  This semester, I was given 3 sections of advanced academic writing.  Although I've taught writing before, I've never gone this in depth with it.

2. It is a content based class.  For example, if I were teaching an intro to psychology class in English, I for sure would use a textbook of some kind.  

3.  If forced to.  Most unis in Korea have some sort of mandatory textbook that they require you to at least pretend to use.

4. It's an exam preparation class, such as TOIEC speaking or something of that sort.  It's just too time consuming to come up with enough practice questions on my own without this.

If given a choice, I'll never use a textbook in the following situations:

1. A conversation class.  I find it much more interesting and useful to just design lessons around themes of some sort.  Structural based syllabi, upon which many textbooks are based are bad news in my opinion.

2. Advanced level students.  Authentic materials (real newspaper articles or youtube videos for example) are much better for these students than inauthentic stuff from a textbook.

3. A current events or contemporary issue in society kind of class.  How can you use a textbook for this?  It's far more interesting to talk about stuff that's actually in the news today.

For more details about this topic, check out Teaching Unplugged by Scott Thornbury, which is the first (and only?) book to deal comprehensively with Dogme ELT.