Selecting English as a Second Language Textbooks

By -
Selecting English as a Second Language Textbooks
by Jilani Warsi

Image result for esl textbooks for adults

Selecting textbooks for English as a Second Language (ESL) students plays a crucial role in how lessons are planned, how course syllabi are prepared, and how textbooks are supplemented with ancillary materials. The following critical aspects of knowledge about textbooks should be considered  to benefit both English language educators and ESL students:

  1. Language – Stylistically, the selections should offer a broad range of syntactic and lexical features appropriate for the targeted level of proficiency. 
q  Besides normative syntactic features, which would help solidify the students’ grammar, a sprinkling of dialect variation would guarantee authenticity and cultivate a feeling for modern usage.
q  The idiom should be varied and balanced in terms of slang, colloquialisms, and phraseology.
q  The vocabulary should pertain to various registers and illustrate multiplicity of meaning.
q  The novels are chosen primarily as language teaching tools and should be challenging for the respective levels.

  1. Style
q  The texts should employ different models of writing and exercise a variety of rhetorical modes of speaking.
q  Emphasis on the organization of arguments is expected, with authentic samples for illustration and editing practice.

  1. Content
q  In order to engage everybody in the class, the content (of the readers, especially) should offer a global span of issues. The setting of the literary works, although preferably US, would connect to other lands and help fill students’ cultural gaps.
q  The technical information must be academically oriented, accurate, and up-to-date.

  1. Related Data
q  All the texts should provide connections to a wealth of concepts, topics, books, and real-life issues in an integrated-skills format to ensure a communicative classroom.

  1. In a nutshell books should be
q  An excellent example of writing
q  Predominantly about US culture, secondarily in contact with one or more other cultures
q  Ideally showing language variation – in style and register


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Schumann’s Acculturation Model

By -
Image
Schumann's Acculturation Model Consider how these social and psychological factors affect the extent of the learner’s capacity to learn his or her second language (L2).   Schumann asserts that the more distance created between the L2 learner and his or her target language (TL) culture by such factors, the less contact s/he will have with the TL culture and thus the lower will his or her expected L2 proficiency be. Furthermore, he considers the social factors to be the prime influences; the psychological factors come into play and become the deciding factors only in situations where the combined social factors create neither positive nor negative circumstances for the learner.   Which outcomes of each of these factors make for a bad learning situation and which ones for a good learning situation? Consider as many as apply to your group’s learner testimonial. Social Distance Factors Social dominance : Is the learner’s native group dominant to, equal to, or subor...
Keep reading

English Pronunciation for Turkish Speakers

By -
Image
Areas of Difficulty for Turkish Speakers Consonants: I.    /t/ & /d/: When Turkish speakers of English pronounce these alveolar consonants, they touch the back of their upper teeth with the tip of their tongue. Instead, try to form a constriction by touching your alveolar ridge (the area behind your upper teeth) with the tip of your tongue. Pronounce these sounds in different phonological environments such as word-initial, medial, and final position and in consonant clusters. tiresome      little      brat       staple    burst     crest                  totalitarianism automatic    trickster            cattle     dental    tirade    tardy     training technique    tangle...
Keep reading

Knowing a Word

By -
Image
Knowing a Word   Fluent native speakers intuitively know how to use a lexical item in the appropriate context. They can even determine meaning of an unfamiliar word when it is written or spoken. However, second language learners may not understand what constitutes knowledge of vocabulary. This post delineates the various strands of vocabulary non-native speakers need to acquire to become highly proficient in writing and speaking in their second language.  1. Word meaning:  Knowing a word entails understanding it when it is written and/or spoken by      others in formal contexts. Native speakers do this readily without asking for clarification, but      second language learners need to acquire this tacit knowledge of vocabulary.  2. Recall: A fluent speaker of a language can recall a word when it is needed in writing or in speech.     S/he can incorporate the needed word while speaking without looking it up...
Keep reading