Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Serviceable December 23, 2008
Of course, the only way one really learns to teach English is by actually doing it. But you have to start somewhere and this book gives a pretty good general overview of how to go about it. I think it could also help the prospective teacher avoid a lot of pitfalls. My main objection to it is that it's British, with British grammatical usage, British spellings, and British sensibilities. I personally found the DVD a bit disturbing because the teachers had substandard pronunciation. But most of my classmates and my professor disagreed with me. They feel that English is English. Maybe that's okay if the students are going to stay in one location and always work at lower level jobs. But if the students are ambitious, they're going to want to move beyond mere communication of basic needs and substandard speech is going to hold them back. But if that doesn't bother you, you may find that this book will suit your needs.
 Oxford Seminar's text August 6, 2008
This is one of the books supplied when registering for the 60 hour Oxford Seminar Teaching ESL/EFL 3 weekend class. There is another commercial text on Overseas Jobs, plus a large O.S. proprietary bound text and a much smaller stappled text for job location. The whole seminar is $995, but $100 off with a 4 week advance registration.
Influenced by the class, I don't see the text as being totally stand alone, even if the quality is exceptionally high. However, I liked the O.S. approach so much that I am adding a supplementary 40 hour module for TOEFL for $300.
Good tips, but not as helpful as I thought it would be July 24, 2007
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I will soon be a first time ESL teacher. Frankly, I am surprised at the great ratings this book has received. Yes, it has some good tips, but I don't feel like I have a better understanding of how people learn languages. A lot of it seemed like it was common sense. (For example, do you really need a book to tell you that people need to be exposed to language in different ways? i.e. Traditional grammar practice is fine, but a student needs to be engaged in the language through other forms of practice. Duh.) If anything this book reassured some thoughts I have had about how to teach.
I liked how he seperated the chapters into "How to teach Reading" or "How to Teach Listening, Writing..." etc. But as I said, nothing in them was terribly enlightening. (90% of the chapters are examples based on the student's level. So therefor if you are only teaching one level, 80% of the chapter is useless to you!) Also, I was annoyed that he dropped the "Beginner" examples in a couple of chapters. I liked those examples, because I will be teaching young children. I do think that some of his more advanced examples could be "dumbed down" for beginner audiences, but he could have had more examples in some chapters.
The "What If" chapter is useful. (i.e. "What if the students are at different levels...What if the class is very big...What if the students don't want to talk?")As are the first few chapters about how to be a teacher in general. He gives good tips on how to speak in class, how to relate to students, lesson plans, how to give instructions, etc. I believe that this was the best part of the book.
I only gave the text 3 stars because I think that the middle chapters, which specifically concern teaching English (the topic of the book!), could have more information in them. I breezed through them because, minus the examples which I mentioned above, there is not that much information in them. You should read this book along with a more indepth study of teaching ESL.
Great learning tool June 27, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I am about to start a TOEFL program to become a teacher and needed something to brush up on my English grammer. I bought this book for myself as a refresher and to give myself a head start on what I will be learning. Thus far it has been great. I believe it will be a wonderful tool to help you teach your class as it breaks down the many different modes of teaching. I have not finished the entire book, but am looking forward to exploring the rest of it.
 How to teach English June 13, 2007
1 out of 16 found this review helpful
I ordered this book for a class in Florence, Italy in May and even paid to have it sent ASAP., here it is June 13th and am leaving for Italy...STILL HAVEN'T RECEIVED IT.
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