ESL: What does it really stand for?
I’ve occasionally felt a little awkward about the name of my book series, ESL Extras. ESL is such a familiar term, almost always known by volunteers and non-teachers, and of course still very much in use internationally. It’s clearly distinguished from EFL as something you learn in an English language environment, not in another language environment. However, here in Australia, … Continue reading
A new link for those free reading books: ‘Bad Hair Day’
A kind teacher just alerted me to an out of date link…for the lovely ‘Bad Hair Day’ ESOL/EAL reading resources by Karen Barber (who also wrote the Carly and Kumar books). These readers were free on the Central AMEP website, but now I see the link has changed.. UPDATE: It has changed again, and the readers are now on YouTube! There … Continue reading
My job really is the best…
My Job is the Best: a new ESL Extras title I have a new ESL Extras book out, but this time it’s a free download. My Job is the Best is another very simple set of Australian ‘stories’ about different Hope Street characters. It has an illustrated, very simple story, with ‘cut-up’ pages, exercises and teacher/tutor notes, like the other books … Continue reading
So how good is my day job that not long ago I had to attend a book launch at the City of Belmont library. There I saw the fabulous Taku Scrutton* enchanting a room full of school kids with a talk about her new book, Multicultural Me, which she wrote to ‘celebrate the cultural diversity and friendship of young people in Australia’. It’s … Continue reading
‘Instant lessons’ and teacher guides
A few thoughts on the ‘instant lessons’ that I’ve tried to provide with the Teacher’s Guide notes in ESL Extras… Learning to teach … How did you learn how to teach English (and move from theory to practice)? Back when I started, we still had ‘team teaching’ and I learnt so much from watching experienced teachers in action. (There must … Continue reading
