New Middle School English Books 1-green,2-yellow,3-pink

[girodimo]

I have a fresh set of middle school English books. Is anyone else out there using these books too?

First Grade Middle School English 1 (Georgeanna Hall)
1.   Meet My Friends
2.   Do You Have Healthy Habits?
3.   How Is Your School Life?
4.   Abracadabra!
5.   A Special Day for Semin’s Family
6.   Mongolia: The Land of Blue Sky
7.   Small Steps for a Better Tomorrow
8.   Break a Leg!
9.   Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch
10.   No Easy Answer
11.   Hello, Dr, Einstein!
12.   Seven Wonders of the World

Second Grade Middle School English 2
1.   Design Your Year
2.   Our Friends from around the World
3.   Are You a Good Netizen?
4.   Advertisements and Our Life
5.   Class Party
6.   How Does the Cat Sleep Soundly?
7.   Heroes in My Heart
8.   Animal Partners
9.   If I Were You
10.   Let’s Draw Our Future
11.   A Look Inside Traditional Korean Life
12.   Smart Exercises

Third Grade Middle School English 3 (Daniel Ryan Keller)
1.   My Dream, My Job
2.   Special Memories
3.   Laughs, Tears, and More
4.   Our Foreign Neighbors
5.   The Father of Video Art
6.   The Spinning Coin
7.   Four Days In Austria
8.   Short Stories and Hidden Wisdom
9.   Economics Helps
10.   Food: A Bridge between Cultures
11.   Heal the Earth
12.   Winners Never Quit, Quitters Never Win

[c_makitalo]

I am!! They so far seem worse than the old ones.  It just seems to be all CD work so that the teachers don't have to do anything but play the CD and tell the kids to work in the books. 

[c_makitalo]

I know they are hard to make lessons off of.  I am only using the Year 1 text.  This is my PPT for that lesson. Hope it helps.  I start off with an introduction to me which leads into the chapters about introductions.

[Rutten]

i used these last year and i have to use them again this year... and yeah, they're pretty bad. i suggest just speeding through the boring stuff and just developing on the activity when you get to it. the CD is quite handy though, i thought. you can ask extra questions about the dialogue to make things more interesting. it's like flogging a dead horse though lol..

[girodimo]

OK. I am not the only one with these books. Thanks for the replies.

I'm trying to be more consistent with my lessons plans this year. In the past I tried various lesson formats to achieve the lesson goals. The plans were structured but, from lesson to lesson I think they varied too much. So this year for the third grade I will try to 'templatize' the lessons but leave enough variation to keep it interesting.  Well...that's the goal. For 1st and 2nd grades I've been instructed to teach the speaking and listening parts of the textbook. It sounds like it will take some work to make the activities a little more engaging.

[daycint]

i have these too! i'm not a fan at all, as i usually have to teach straight from the textbook with no ppt of input of my own. the few times i've been able to use ppt as the presentation and practice before the main activities it has worked out well though.

[gavinsinclair]

Me too.  Last semester I only had the student activity book to work from which is largely in Korean, now that I have the teacher edition it looks a lot easier. 

[sophia]

I have those books too. I usually find one interesting thing per chapter and build a lesson around that.
The "Design your year" chapter is not fun at all and I still don't know what I am gonna do with that.

[gavinsinclair]

For the Design Your Year one I'm still figuring out how to make it fun but the phrase "Long time, no see" is going to be the first thing to try and get rid of the "Nice to meet you" habit 

[odie]

I have these textbooks too but my school wants me to come up with my own lessons. But I still want to work with material from these or my students will realize my lessons aren't on their tests and they can will talk straight through the class. Any help in figuring out how to use them would be appreciated!

[cinamon]

I have that one too and on second look, it's not as terrible as I thought it was when I first saw it.  It's at least an improvement from the one we had before.

The CD is awful and I'll probably use it sparingly or use it on "naughty" classes as a backup.  I HATE "listen and repeat" stuff with a passion.

I would just use the ideas and language points from each unit and then modify them a bit so that they're less painful.

Will post more after I start my lessons.

[cinamon]

Ughh...well just found out they want me to teach directly from the book. Exactly without a stone out of place.   It'll make the job easier for me but extremely uninspiring.

Any suggestings?  What are your class procedures?

[fmlaugust]

I am also using these books.  They told me today and I "teach" from them starting Monday.  I have no clue where to begin. In the past, my KT's have pretty much used me as the human tape recorder...now it's time to teach from the book...oh joy!

[hchbabyg84]

wow that is great to know i am not the only one i am teaching Grade 1 and i have another school i am taeching a whole different set of books !!!
So we all just "go get em"

. . . . least we have each other to learn from too !!!

[gavinsinclair]

Ask your coteacher for a copy of the teacher's resource book and teacher's guide. 

Last semester I had to work entirely from the student activity copies and now I have the actual books it looks like it will be a lot easier.

[kiwikimchi]

I also have been a tape recorder but now its my turn to teach from the book. Pretty much word by word and use worksheets (fill in the blanks to supplement the lesson) I am pretty sure that this is the most uninteresting method to teach and can see my students be bored to death after 1 week.
I suggested supplementing fun interesting activities related to the lesson..."No time" Just teach from book only"
Its near impossible to make these lessons interesting by solely following the book.
Glad there are other out there in the same boat to bounch ideas off.

[cainrok]

I have these books too.  I don't teach grade 1, so I'll only be using the grade 2 and 3 books.  I had total freedom with my lessons last semester and didn't even open the textbooks.  In the 3 periods it takes to cover one chapter, my co-teachers now want me to use at least one of those periods to do textbook material.  I guess it's not nearly as bad as having every lesson come from the books.  I'm at a loss.  I'm usually very creative but I'm having a total mental block.  The chapter contents are just so random   

[Marissa0687]

I use this book for 2nd graders and taught from it last year. I agree, they're terrible, but here's some tips:

Definitely get the teacher's book. Ask your coteacher for one. It's a big blue book that outlines the grammar points/expressions for each lesson.

Give the lessons structure so the students aren't confused with too many changes from week to week. My basic structure is this: Introduce the grammar point or expression, then we get into the book work. They listen and answer the questions, and after each section we practice the dialog chorally. Then they practice with partners, then they volunteer to read with their partner in front of the class. Rinse and repeat for each section until you finish the book work. After the book, we always have an activity or game to focus on the point of the lesson.

The activity section is very dry for this book, IMO, so add some sort of game or activity at the end to focus on the point of the lesson. Even if you have to stick to the book, there is NOT a lot of material to get through. We finish the bookwork in less than 20 minutes, usually. This can be anything from having students create their own dialogs to preparing a PPT game, or anything in-between. For lesson 1, I'm going to make an activity using the "Pass the Pencil" template where they will practice "Long time no see" and "Do you remember...". I'll post it when I'm finished in case anyone wants to use it.

[michel.william]

All -

I was lucky enough to get these books too.... I am in Charge of "Listen and Speak 1&2"

My plan for day 1 for GRADE 1:
1. Go through the DVD 10 Minutes. (objective: make co-teachers happy)
2. Pass the Paper Game 5 Minutes. (objective: to wake the students up)
3. Go through the attached power point: 10-15 Minutes
4. Have the students complete and present #1, #2, #3, and #4 (see ppt) in front of the class.(10 Minutes)
5. Have them play Kaboom(http://www.eslcafe.com/idea/index.cgi?display:1089034968-23737.txt): Rest of class

Good luck with these books.



This lesson was mostly from GreenFloyd, he is the man.
http://waygook.org/index.php/topic,3708.msg19030.html#msg19030

I also did not create pass the paper...but it works well. I will play my own music to this one....

Anyone have plans for Grade 2 or 3.... best of luck .

[megan baldock]

I teach 1st and 2nd grade. I don't have to teach directly from the book, but I find it does help my students if i teach topics based on the chapters.

I show students what is in the book then explain the more common ways of saying things. Example: How are you? I'm fine thanks, How about you?= Hows it going? I'm good,You?

Grade 1-Chapter 1-Meet my friends
Week 1 intro-teacher and different sentences for introductions
Week 2-Different ways to say How are you? and different responses(vocabulary words)
Week 3- Describing people- Not related to book but i use it in creating a dialogue that works the 2 previous weeks vocabulary into it.
Hi My name is Mina and I have dark black hair and bangs etc.

Chapter 2-Do you have Healthy habits
Body parts, telling time, hobbies

Grade 2-Design your year
Making rules and goals for English class
Dialogue from pages 11/12 together,fill in the blank contest, create your own

Chapter 2- Our friends around the world-
Foods that i would normally eat(the reaction u get from an American breakfast is amazing)
Practice dialogue-giving students realistic sentences
I made menus from a restaurant on line(you have to simplify the language but students really get into it-I use a pizza restaurant since they are familiar with that.)

Culture-differences between Canadian/Korean culture. What is Korean culture? Activity: pretend to write for a tourism magazine. Students have to say why should people come to Korea? What food is good? And what are some rules that people should follow while in Korea.

Here is just some ideas...they have worked for me...but all classes are different and as we know all schools are different on what they expect the Native English speaker to do.