What’s going on? Every time I look at the news headlines, another government seems to have fallen. The world is in turmoil but, on an individual level, we have to carry on.
For many people, learning English represents an investment in a better future. I teach a lot of children, and their parents sometimes make great sacrifices to give their child more options, in higher education and then in the workplace, by helping them to become confident English-speakers at an early age. An example of that is a young boy I taught for several years, who was then sent from his home country in Asia to secondary school in North America to continue his schooling, and eventually his adult life, a very long way away from home. He had to leave his parents and his younger brother behind.
As an English teacher, I take my part in this seriously. And I feel the same way as the author of more than 25 books – to help both adults and children learn, and improve, their English. After all, these are the books I use with my own students, and the books are in some cases inspired by particular students, or a particular group of students.
For instance, I wrote my books for primary-school-age children who are just starting to learn English because I found myself teaching a number of young Korean children, online and from scratch. I struggled to find suitable teaching materials for them, so I decided to write my own. My first books, the “Read English with Zigzag” and “I Speak English Too!” series, were based on how I was teaching those students. I was instinctively talking to them in the little phrases that make up essential basic English conversation, with lots of questions and answers and repetition. Then building on those phrases and making the little conversations more complex. This approach leads, surprisingly quickly, to a really useful level of communication. Those Korean children then moved on to the “Read English with Ben” series and “The Learn English Activity Book for Children”.
I’ll soon be publishing a first coursebook for young English-learners. Again, I’ve taken the approach of slowly building up the child’s vocabulary and grammar. The book starts from zero, but it’s not long before the child can understand, and hopefully say, quite a lot of basic English. It’s a fun book, too, and is going down really well with my current young beginner students. Expect to see this 1st English Coursebook on Amazon in January.
My 7 dialogue books for adults – covering both everyday English and business English – use a similar approach, but at a higher level. They teach English as it is spoken in the real world, in hundreds of different scenarios. It’s a way of learning through immersion, which is the most natural approach to language-learning. I especially enjoyed writing the business dialogues, which are based in part on my time as a lawyer, and in part on the experiences I’ve heard about from some of my business English students (anonymised, of course)!
By the way – the English in my books is 100% hand-written. Unfortunately, a lot of books coming onto the market are written by AI and 1) are boring (in my view) and, 2) include mistakes. This is at its worst when a book is written in, for instance, French or German, and is then translated into English using AI. The poor reader is then given this version of English. I’ve seen books teaching children simple sentences where almost every word is wrong. Be careful out there, and good luck with your English!
