Book Review: English As a Second Language: Learn English Fast and Have lots of Fun

Since I've been talking about students putting in the extra effort and movies in class, I figured this would be a good time to introduce a quick book review of a book I read a few weeks ago.

Title: Englsh As a Second Language: Learn English Fast and Have lots of Fun Author Binh Phan Price $4.87 Pages 55

Who should buy it? This book is definitely made for ELLs more than ELTs. It would be a useful book for an ELT to have a loan out to students, or a book you could suggest you students look into on their own.

What’s it do? This book goes through different, “fun” ways to learn and practice English. It covers, Movies, Songs, Games, Chatting / Blogging, and Reading.

In each section it explains:

Why you should do this:

Example:  The book explains that there are many benefits to singing. Your body increases its oxygen intake, balances its metabolism and aids the motor skills between primary senses and the brain. It also tends to put you in a better mood, and most people consider it fun. Since the brain associates fun as something pleasant you are more likely to retain the information in the lyrics!

How you should do this:

Example: For reading, the book suggests that you read out loud, read and record your voice, read books that movies are based on, read animated stories, read comics, read Fairy Tales, and read English jokes. In each category it tells you why reading this specific type of text is good and what people will probably enjoy it the most. It also gives examples of where to find things in this category to read.

Is it any good? The author admits he is not reinventing the wheel. Most of the information in the book is common sense and probably stuff that you already tell your students. However, many students are convinced that their teacher’s advice isn’t as great as someone who wrote a book. If you think your student would get a wakeup call from the book, or just needs to hear what you have said from someone else then YES the book is worth buying.

Plus, after the book is over he gives away another e-book of his for free “Learn English Fast, A guide to improving your English with accelerated learning techniques and unstoppable motivation.”

And wait, there’s more! If you leave a review and share it on Facebook or twitter he will gives your student access to two weeks of the, “Learn English Fast ‘n’ Fun” program.  Perhaps those two weeks would be of some help to your students?

I’d love to know if you end up reading this what you think, or if you have any similar ideas feel free to leave a comment!