Explaining ESL Extras: a video experiment
Can video offer a quick introduction when you can’t get to an ESL bookstore? I often get questions from teachers and volunteer tutors about the ESL Extras readers: I’m nowhere near a bookshop – what do the books look like? How do you use them? What are the levels, exactly? What’s this ‘Beginner B’? How does your prelim ‘literacy’ reader work? … Continue reading
A new review of ESL Extras
I just got permission to share two book reviews from QATESOL, for Maybe Next Year and Six Stories from Hope Street. Thanks so much to the reviewers, Mary Tibben and Su Murgatroyd, for the time they spent on this – and to QATESOL. Reviews are so important: they alert teachers and librarians to new materials, or remind them of who … Continue reading
ESL Extras and pre-employment English
How do ESL Extras support pre-employment English? This is a question I expect to have to answer, with the new AMEP contract coming soon – and of course it’s already an issue for anyone who teaches on the SEE program. (For anyone outside Australia reading this, these are national government programs providing language and literacy training. The Adult Migrant English … Continue reading
Reading ‘The Coat’: ideas for CSWE II and III learners
I had an illuminating session recently talking to some CSWE teachers – both those who’ve been using ESL Extras and those who’d just heard of them. One of the things we talked about was why students might be motivated to read, when there are so many competing demands on their time… So what would make reading of value? I know … Continue reading
‘Welcome to Hope Street’ in the CPSWE / CSWE I class
Life isn’t neat. It’s all very well to know that Welcome to Hope Street is for prelim (CPSWE) learners, but what about when you have a mixed level class, with much more capable CSWE I beginners, who need to work on different learning outcomes. Can you use the book, but give them extension work? This was the question asked by … Continue reading
