Introducing My Favourite Teaching Resources
One of the first things I discovered when coming to China was many schools lacked good teaching resources, some lacked a curriculum and often what was available. In many cases the teaching materials were full of errors. In recent years the situation in China has improved with some good releases of western resource especially some Cambridge materials.
Useful Teaching Books
Since been in China I have decided I wanted to be long term so I decided to invest in some teaching resources especially from the Cambridge Copy Collection and Penguin English Photocopiables. Over the years I have built up a personal library ( I was fortunate my boss in Perth saw the merit of some of these books and purchased them off me). What I soon found the students were very responsive to my lessons as the quality improved dramatically and it enabled me to increase the variety of lesson types and over time the books gave me ideas to develop lesson of my own. I particularly like the Listening Extra Book (from Cambridge Copy Collection and the Pair Work 1 and Pair Work 2 Penguin English Photocopiables
Amazon.com
I have sourced books from various online sources but have to say ( I am not paid for this comment) that in terms of ease of purchasing, viewing the materials and minimal fuss in materials arriving is the use of www.amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
For British English materials www.amazon.co.uk. I have yet to have problems in teaching resources coming to me from Amazon UK as for some other suppliers customs have asked for fees etc but never with Amazon packages.
Cambridge Copy Collection
As I have said having teaching resources make a huge difference to your teaching. What I like about the resources listed below is they offer teaching plans with suggestions for different types of classes and situations plus they are easy to prepare and what is more students like them.
The Cambridge Copy Collection
This is quite a large collection of books however in my role as a foundation teacher here in Hefei the following books from the set are particularly useful
Listening Extra Book and Audio CD Pack: A Resource Book of Multi-Level Skills Activities (Cambridge Copy Collection) [Audiobook] (Spiral-bound) ISBN-13: 978-0521754613
Speaking Extra Book and Audio CD Pack: A Resource Book of Multi-level Skills Activities (Cambridge Copy Collection) (Spiral-bound)ISBN-13: 978-0521754644
Writing Extra: A Resource Book of Multi-Level Skills Activities (Cambridge Copy Collection) (Spiral-bound) ISBN-13: 978-0521532877
Reading Extra: A Resource Book of Multi-Level Skills Activities (Cambridge Copy Collection) (Spiral-bound)
Useful Web-links for ESL Teachers
One of the things I have noticed since teaching ESL is multitude of web resources on the net (almost too many) Here I have compiled a list of some of my favourites which may be useful for you.
The Cambridge Copy Collection
This is quite a large collection of books however in my role as a foundation teacher here in Hefei the following books from the set are particularly useful
Listening Extra Book and Audio CD Pack: A Resource Book of Multi-Level Skills Activities (Cambridge Copy Collection) [Audiobook] (Spiral-bound) ISBN-13: 978-0521754613
Speaking Extra Book and Audio CD Pack: A Resource Book of Multi-level Skills Activities (Cambridge Copy Collection) (Spiral-bound)ISBN-13: 978-0521754644
Writing Extra: A Resource Book of Multi-Level Skills Activities (Cambridge Copy Collection) (Spiral-bound) ISBN-13: 978-0521532877
Reading Extra: A Resource Book of Multi-Level Skills Activities (Cambridge Copy Collection) (Spiral-bound)
Useful Web-links for ESL Teachers
One of the things I have noticed since teaching ESL is multitude of web resources on the net (almost too many) Here I have compiled a list of some of my favourites which may be useful for you.
Handouts online
The http://www.handoutsonline.com/ I have found to be useful website and one I have referred to over the years. If you are in a situation like China teaching college oral English Classes this website would provide you with some useful lessons with lesson plans. If you can print and also use a phtocopier you can teach these lesson. I find the theme lessons and reading lesson great. Some of the business Enlish lessons are great for IELTS and EAP preparation classes. There is an annual subscription
Handout Hub
Here is another website I have more recently subscribed to http://www.handouthub.com/ Again a nice range of lessons with plans and a very good index with lessons linked to text books. I also like the quality of lessons to use with beginners. It has a large selection of material suitable for IELTS Preparation
Thre ESL Printables website http://www.eslprintables.com/ is another great source of lessons and is a lesson share website where you need to upload lesson for others. You gain points when someone downloads your lesson from it. I have found it great for lessons with songs and it inspired me to create some of my own of my own lessons. A site well worth becoming a member of.
Onestop English. I found this particularly useful in my first year of teaching in China for Oral English. I subscribed to it and download all I could get in the first year. it has useful lesson plans. As my confidence grew as I teacher I found the lessons gave me templates to develop my own lessons
www.onestopenglish.com/
www.onestopenglish.com/
