Customer Reviews

How to Teach English (How to... S.)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is an excellent buy. It has hints and tips to help with facing the hurdles of being a trainee such as difficult lessons (and students) to actual class prep work. It is well set out and has a depth to it that makes even the most complex understandable. There are many 'sample' teaching methods to study as well as important self-test sections. A great pal to turn to in moments of despair!

This book is a complete manual of teaching English as a foreign or second language. It is complete because of its wide-range coverage from general issues about teaching and learning English (Chapter 1 and 2) up to specific problems that English teachers frequently encounter (Chapter 13). Between these two extremes, readers can find almost everything dealing with teaching and learning English. Those who are interested in developing the teaching of language components may refer to Chapter 5. A brief review about sentence construction, part of speech, noun types, verb forms are topics within this chapter. Not intending to dichotomize weakness and strength, bad and good, these topics indicate that the description of grammar used in this book refer to traditional view of grammar, not to Hallidian grammar. Chapter 7 - 10 deal with teaching the four language skills. They are, therefore, appropriate for those who want a practical, easy to understand reference of teaching listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
As a teaching manual, as the writer says in its introduction, How to teach English is a practical book concentrating on examples of teaching and teaching practice rather than on detailed analysis of learning theory. Its practical characteristic makes this book appropriate for novice teachers with even limited comprehension. In addition, in the bulk of TEFL material, this book will be more useful when accompanied by Trapper-Lomax, Hugh and Ian McGrath (Eds.), 1999. Theory in Language Teacher Education; and Cohen, Andrew D, 1998. Strategies in Learning and Using a Second Language).
Its completeness still goes further as this book seems to be able to answer the frequent complaint of some readers, including me, of being disturbed by the feeling of inadequate understanding. This book provides a kind of checklists (Task File) by which the readers may self-evaluate what they have read. Not less important is the appendix describing equipment used in the classroom.
Another feature indicating the strength, and at the same time as the weakness, of this book is the writer's attempt to 'balance' the issues discussed in this book and to maximize the students' role. This attempt might also be regarded as a reflection of the writer's personality of being moderate. "Good teachers use their common sense and experience to get the balance right (between when to talk and when not to talk)" (p. 4), "good teachers find a balance between predictable safety and unexpected variety (when to observe and when to violate their behaviour patterns)" (p. 5), and " a good teacher maximize STT (Student Talk Time) and minimize TTT (Teacher Talk Time)" are examples of quotations describing this feature. Still concerning in terms of balancing, the writer argues that a balance has to be struck between teachers attempting to achieve what they set out to achieve on the one hand and responding to what students are saying or doing on the other (p.5). Dealing the reading texts, whether authentic or artificial, a balance has to be struck between real English on the one hand and the students' capabilities and interests on the other (p. 69).
This feature also indicates its weakness in the sense that being moderate is not an easy job. People tend to rely, conscious or unconsciously, on one extreme instead of being moderate, though they will be inconvenient of being said to be fanatics.

" How to teach English" is a plain guide for understanding how the teaching method can reach your students. It's easy to understand and follow, giving clear and sensible tips to understand student's behaviour and ways of taking advantage of this knowledge to reach them.However, I would recommend accompanying this issue together with "The practice of English language teaching" by the same author.

Although there wasn't much directly useful to my situation (Public middle school in Korea. I have classes of nearly 40 students and see each class once per week), the book helped me get an idea of what my role was going to be and what I needed to do in order to prepare. I have even been able to adapt a few of the activity ideas into my monster-sized classes. Personally, I would like to see a longer discussion about having large class sizes, and strategies for dealing with them, but obviously no one can write a book perfectly catered to everyone.

I will soon be a first time ESL teacher. Frankly, I am surprised at the great ratings this book has received. Yes, it has some good tips, but I don't feel like I have a better understanding of how people learn languages. A lot of it seemed like it was common sense. (For example, do you really need a book to tell you that people need to be exposed to language in different ways? i.e. Traditional grammar practice is fine, but a student needs to be engaged in the language through other forms of practice. Duh.) If anything this book reassured some thoughts I have had about how to teach.

I liked how he seperated the chapters into "How to teach Reading" or "How to Teach Listening, Writing..." etc. But as I said, nothing in them was terribly enlightening. (90% of the chapters are examples based on the student's level. So therefor if you are only teaching one level, 80% of the chapter is useless to you!) Also, I was annoyed that he dropped the "Beginner" examples in a couple of chapters. I liked those examples, because I will be teaching young children. I do think that some of his more advanced examples could be "dumbed down" for beginner audiences, but he could have had more examples in some chapters.

The "What If" chapter is useful. (i.e. "What if the students are at different levels...What if the class is very big...What if the students don't want to talk?")As are the first few chapters about how to be a teacher in general. He gives good tips on how to speak in class, how to relate to students, lesson plans, how to give instructions, etc. I believe that this was the best part of the book.

I only gave the text 3 stars because I think that the middle chapters, which specifically concern teaching English (the topic of the book!), could have more information in them. I breezed through them because, minus the examples which I mentioned above, there is not that much information in them. You should read this book along with a more indepth study of teaching ESL.

This is IT! The best introductory text you can buy on the subject of teaching English as a Second Language. Seems like everybody and their brother are writing ESL books these days, so do yourself a favor and start with one by an extremely knowledgeable author. Mr. Harmer makes the basics of teaching ESL sound easy and more importantly FUN. Enjoy it...

This book is essential reading for all English teachers. It has been great for me as I have used it daily with my TEFL course, and will be referring to it for many months I guess. I'm sure though that there are many English teachers who already feel they are experienced but would benefit from Harmer's book as "every day's a school day!"

The book, How to Teach English by Jeremy Harmer, is wonderful and easy to read. It provides you with information on the basics of teaching and provides guidance in how to conduct classroom work effectively. I found it most helpful in getting an understanding of how classes ought to be taught, and conducting class so that students will maintain interest in the lessons.

Good book that really breaks down teaching and teaching English into easy terms for the beginner. Each chapter uses bold face type to identify the different teaching and grammar terms. Nice easy to use conclusion at the end of each chapter. There is a great "WHAT IF" chapter at the end that really explains how to handle the difficult and unpleasant sides of teaching!!!

I am about to start a TOEFL program to become a teacher and needed something to brush up on my English grammer. I bought this book for myself as a refresher and to give myself a head start on what I will be learning. Thus far it has been great. I believe it will be a wonderful tool to help you teach your class as it breaks down the many different modes of teaching. I have not finished the entire book, but am looking forward to exploring the rest of it.