Shiv on Learning

I have been observing sessions this week at English City for training purposes and have come across two very interesting points brought up by students.  One student I observed is a teacher in Spain and has taught Spanish to all levels including university.  When the topic of selling used textbooks came up in Conversations Café the student voiced his opinions about textbooks. “When I taught civic education in a high school I did not use any text books. For me they were out of date and not relevant to my class. My class had kids from every nationality so the textbooks did not reflect their cultural experiences of living in Spain. I made my own lessons and used current affairs and their own experiences to help them” This to me shows that text books can be a good tool but only if they fit into what your reality is.

“Why wouldn’t we learn language the normal way like children instead of using these nonsense textbooks?” This is a comment from a Czech student living in the UK who has studied English all his school life and had never had a chance to speak. When he first arrived in English City he was too afraid to speak, bearing in mind he lives in the UK! Since then he has come into English City every day and has made leaps and bounds with his speaking confidence.

When I taught in Indonesia, Chile and the UK I used ESL text books to provide a base for my courses.  In many ways they gave me a foundation and a starting point to build from.  However, had I stuck to the book and gone through chapter by chapter without creating any of my own content learning English in my classes would have been a very dry experience. 

As many teachers do, I used a range of video, music, current news articles and news recordings to make learning more engaging.  One of my favourite things was using authentic conversations I had recorded on an evening in my house, or getting my friends to come to class to do a ‘live listening’ and Q&A session for my students. Being in a virtual environment where you can talk to people all time is like a super charged combination of all of the above techniques. Sometimes interaction is student to student, other times teacher to student. Then there are times where two English City People are talking to each other and students will be able to listen to an authentic conversation – like our ‘A Chat With’ series.

Would be interested to know your views on textbooks and how relevant they are for the internet savvy, communication junky students of today….

Reporting from English City,

Jessica Driscoll