Reader's Choice Fourth Edition

If you're reading this blog and you are an ESL tutor, Reader's Choice, by Sandra Silberstein, Barbara K. Dobson and Mark A. Clarke, published by The University of Michigan Press, may not be a new book to you, but this is the first week I have perused it.  The fourth edition has a publication date of 2005, so it's not a new book - just new to me. The copy I borrowed from my local municipal library, is in excellent condition. I don't know if the condition is owing to it being a new book to our library, or if it has been infrequently used.  I hope it's not the latter. 

My ESL Learners vary in level.  I could see this book being helpful for all of them in the future.  Clearly, it is aimed at elevating the reading skills of already advanced English Learners.  Its scope is wide, in that the variety of material and lessons presented requires the Learner to grow their vocabulary,  read and understand fiction as well as science, do work on the internet and decipher mixed graphic and text information.   It contains frequently used idioms, that native English speakers may not even think are idioms because they are so common and ordinary. The comprehension exercises are excellent and the nonprose reading is an essential skill in the day to day lives of most Learners.  There are plenty of critical reading passages and discussion prompts. The tome weighs in at over 400 pages.  This is a book that can be used in a class setting as well as  one-on-one tutoring sessions.  

If you have not used nor seen the Fourth Edition of Reader's Choice,  and you have advanced ESL Learners, this may be a resource that becomes indispensable to you. If your library has the newest iteration, Fifth Edition of Readers's Choice, you should take a look.  I'm going to see if any of the libraries in my area have it in their collections. 

Thank you, University of Michigan Press for such  comprehensive books!

Perfect Phrases for ESL Conversation Skills - book review

I teach 2 of my 3 English Learners at my local public library and I make as much use of their ESL collection, and that of the affiliated libraries as I can. Occasionally, a book I come across is so useful, I add it to my personal library because I don't want to risk needing it and having it out of the library with another tutor or learner.

Perfect Phrases for ESL Conversation Skills is one of those books. I have borrowed several books of idioms, that have been helpful, to a degree. The whole area of idioms and phrases is imperative to English Learners, because Americans speak in idioms incessantly.  One of my learners has an excellent vocabulary and can write well, but he can be confused when listening to Americans speak, because we don't speak in the formal way he was taught English in his native country.

This book, Perfect Phrases for ESL Conversation Skills by Diane Engelhardt, is not brand new, but I hadn't seen it in my library before.  It was published last year.  She has brilliantly blended idioms and commonly used phrases and classified them in such chapters as:

• Small Talk
• Past Experiences
• Likes, Dislikes and Interests
• Objects and Processes
• Problems and Advice
• Decisions and Goals

The above topics comprise Part 1 of the book.  Part 2 consists of:

• Opinions
• Group Discussions
• Serious Subjects

And Part 3 is entitled

• Afterthoughts

The best aspect of this book is its contemporaneousness.  Several other idiomatic resources I have consulted are a bit outdated.  Language is not static, it evolves and we need to keep our students understanding how American English speakers actually talk. Perfect Phrases for ESL Conversation Skills by Diane Engelhardt has captured current speech in the kinds of phrases we use and has classified them in a user friendly way.  

As I indicated above, this book is going to become part of my personal library.