Those #&!*% boring books!

One major problem teachers have brought up is that material is boring. Although it is quite easy to find that material is boring it actually leads us to a much more difficult but important and useful question. What material is exciting? What coursebook do you know of that makes students excited to come to class? What books have made your class the most interesting class the students attend in their school? What coursebooks give the sleepers insomnia? What coursebooks are so much fun that students who have no extrinsic interest in learning English take your course just because it's so fascinating?

Business dilemmas for business speaking

For business related dilemmas, problems and issues for your students to sort out I recommend two books by Cambridge. These are part of their 'photocopiable resource' book series and has teacher instructions, etc, etc.


"BUSINESS ROLES - 12 simulations for Business English"

Two of the twelve units are:

"Polluting the river - This US fridge maker has been secretly polluting the river for decades. However, putting a stop to it may mean heavy financial or job losses..." (Actually, GE is going through some problems in NY about this right now.)

"Quality and personnel - A VCR manufacturer with factories in the Far East and Europe tries to determine why quality is so much better in one plant than in the other."


"DECISIONMAKER - 14 business situations for analysis and discussion"

Two of the fourteen units are:

"Smoke Signals - A trainee in a large cigarette company has to respond to a secret marketing strategy"

"The Hohokum Virus - A computer company responds to a blackmail threat."


Although the books are similar in that they require discussion and problem solving in English, Business Roles is essentially for role play whereas Decisionmaker is for class discussion.

Favorite materials & teaching via telephone

I am using 'Discussions A-Z, A resource book of speaking activities' published by Cambridge. It's expensive, but worth it to me as I've been able to use it a lot in my training.

It has photocopiable pages. I'm teaching an IELTS class and will photocopy 3 pages for the students. During the week, the students will call me three times and we'll do a page each time. This is an English by telephone course and it works great.

The book has lots of little questions formed around a topic. For example:

TIME
What would life be like if we didn't have clocks? Would there be any advantages? etc, etc.

FAMILIES
Why do we need families?
Is the family ever likely to disappear as an institution?
Should the mother or the father be the head of the family?
etc, etc.

JOBS
Which is the easiest job?
babysitter, dentist, football player, teacher
The most tiring?
doctor, farmer, miner, tip model
etc, etc.

There's about 50 units. Each unit has teacher's instructions. My students like it very much.

I'm doing this training by phone, partially as an experiment. I've found it to go surprisingly well. I was afraid there might be trouble with clarity over the phone line but it has been very clear. Also, the student gets one-on-one conversation time with me, howbeit only 15 minutes a go.