[Bagga]

You're welcome, puu_sawn

Ok, here we go, a little review section giving my opinion of those Penny Ur books I have used or owned. ( I once had every resource book she had ever written, which was actually far too many!)

GPA - already mentioned, a must-have

Five minute actuivities - I liked this one, but didn't use it a lot. Some of the 5 minute ideas can be expanded to 30 minute sessions...

Discussions that work - this one was very dense with ideas, but I found it took a fair amount of mental preparation for me before I personally could use it. (I prefer quick fixes maybe, so I can lazily throw an hour-long session together in minutes...)

Keep Talking - good stuff, again, like all of Ur's resource books, but I didn't use it a lot

Teaching Listening Comprehension - brilliant stuff! I wish I had a copy now, teaching IELTS here in China. There is a table early in the book that shows how fluent English speakers actually speak bad English, this table alone is worth the cost of the book, and the activities were excellent too. ('Owdjudu? 'Owarya?))

When I started this list I was convinced there were more books than this in my collection. Maybe I was thinking of another book I had with a similar cover:

Games for Language Learning by Andrew Wright, David Betteridge & Michael Buckley. This gave me some good activities to exploit in class, too.


The good thing about the above list is that there is so much discussion of the hows and whys of EFL teaching that you are almost getting a teacher training course thrown in as a bonus.

Good Luck, keep on drilling!

[donpaulo]

I use Side by Side from Longman for oral communication, but also like 50-50.

I sometimes use the American Streamline series, but only for some of the lessons.

Recently I have begun tapping into the home school text books such as Scholastic and Usborne. They aren't ESL lesson plans in themselves but you can them to base a class around the information presented.

For younger ones I have had alot of success with "Green Eggs and Ham" and "Go dog go" as well as "hop on pop".

[fnnkybutt]

Quote donpaulo

For younger ones I have had alot of success with "Green Eggs and Ham" and "Go dog go" as well as "hop on pop".

I've been using GE&H as my lesson plan with 6-8 year olds for the last 2 weeks. They can't get enough of it. I've used it to teach vocabulary, rhymes and verbs (I like, I don't like, Would you like? etc) and it's worked better than anything else I've found for that age group to actually get them TALKING. They're at the point now of reciting the story along with me. Dr. Seuss is non-existent in Peru, so I'm having some more books sent to me soon. Hop on Pop, Red Fish, Blue Fish, The Cat in the Hat, and I'm thinking I'll use 'where the wild things are' with my pre-schoolers. I'm even considering using the longer books (Bartholomew Cubbins, The Lorax, The Sneetches, Horton Hatches an Egg) with my high schoolers.

My regular textbook is Interchange - which has worked just fine for teaching vocabulary and basics - but really getting the kids to talk is a whole other story.

[puu_sawn]

Quote fnnkybutt

Dr. Seuss is non-existent in Peru, so I'm having some more books sent to me soon. Hop on Pop, Red Fish, Blue Fish, The Cat in the Hat, and I'm thinking I'll use 'where the wild things are' with my pre-schoolers.

My friend and I were just discussing using Dr. Seuss the other day. That and Mr. Bean videos to teach verbs...

[Eric]

Quote Bagga

Keep Talking - good stuff, again, like all of Ur's resource books, but I didn't use it a lot

I love this book. I used to extensively in my adult classes and higher level high school and university classes.

[Manuela]

I've taught both English Files and New English Files. I would recommend the latter, even though the old English Files were excellent books too.
The New English Files also have a CD ROM for students to practice on their computer. I'm really enthusiastic about this series of books and would gladly teach it again. I wish I had written it, it so much suits me. THere is also plenty of extra stuff to do with the students, in the teacher's book. There are games. THere are songs. There is everyday conversation vocabulary. I strongly recommend it.

[clivehawkins]

Quote Manuela

THere is also plenty of extra stuff to do with the students, in the teacher's book. There are games. THere are songs. There is everyday conversation vocabulary. I strongly recommend it.

Yes, it certainly has a lot of support material. Something that the Headway series is certainly lacking.

BTW, have you been to the OUP website, there are also some online activities, both for the EF and Headway series.