course books for very young learners

[Magg]

Hello all,

I´m about to start teaching 3 and 5 year-old kids, and I´m trying to find a suitable course book for them to follow.
I´ve been having a look at the some publishing houses such as Longman, Burlington Books, Oxford and Cambridge, but they show very few samples on their web ages.
I'll name the ones that have caught my attention, and I´k like you to give some advice concerning these or others. Here they are:

Oxford:
Tiny Talk
Three in a Tree
Teddy's Train

Burlington Books:
Baby Bertie
Bertie Bear 1
Bertie Bear 2

Longman:
Balloons
Pingu

Of course, the three year-old kids don´t even know how to read or write in their mother tongue.

Apart from that, I would truly appreciate any comments on methodology, and the idea of using English into the classroom as much as possible.

Thank a lot,
Magg

[Casiopea]

I'm familiar with all those titles. They're pretty much all the same, if you ask me. Choose a book that you think you'll be happy with; i.e., content and price. Ask, "Can I teach the contents of this book? Does this book have what I am looking for? Will my students be happy with this book?"

Your best bet might be to ask ESL teachers in Spain. Find out what they're using. There must be an ESL Forum for Spanish teachers, si?

[Magg]

Casiopea - thanks for your help.
My intention was that of going to the bookshop and have a look at the titles myself in order to make a good choice.
I just wanted to know someone else's opinion in case a title or the other was worth working with it.

Magg

[boczenka]

Hi :)

I've been teaching 4,5 and 6 years olds from Teddy's Train. I find it very nice. Children love the book and the main character, Teddy. The songs are nice and easy to learn. I play the tape with songs even while they're drawing or playing. I like this book very much. For me, it's the best book for children.

[Teaching English Games]

If you have internet access and a printer you can access loads of free flash cards and with these using games you can run entire lessons - particularly with beginners to lower intermediate -- you don't even need a course book if you don't want one.

I have taught mostly with no course book (although I'm not against them at all), exclusively using games just with a few picture cards. I'm not a big fan of making zillions of photocopies anyway!

Even if you don't have picture cards you can have your students make some as long as you at least have pencil and paper.

To make your life easy it's good if you follow a course book anyway, to save you worrying about which language to teach, but you teach the language in that course book with games, and not using the book itself - it's just your guide.

Kind regards,
Shelley
Receive free games and ideas to make teaching children more fun on: www.teachingenglishgames.com

[Teaching English Games]

Hello again,
Following up from my post just above, to give you a specific idea about what I mean by teaching with no course book you can sign up for a free three part mini-series.
This contains games and activities to teach vocabulary. The vocab flashcards are provided free too.
Then a story with illustrations and story telling tips,
And finally more activities to use after story telling.
This mini-series is designed for children aged 3 to 5 but the game ideas could also be used for older children. Otherwise you may receive free games for older children too. See the links below. I hope you enjoy the material.
Kind regards
Shelley
FREE ESL games and activities for children aged 6 to 12
and
Preschool ESL: Games, activities and stories for children aged 3 to 5