When teaching in a classroom setting I always had a selection of reliable textbooks. No one book really fulfils the needs of a teacher, but one of the best I found, for a comprehensive course taught in an interesting way, was the New English File series. These cover all levels, from beginner to advance, with a wide range of exercises and activities. They include considerations for a variety of media and are vividly presented, enough to engage all classes. And if you opt for the teacher’s book too, the lessons are basically planned for you.

Benefits of using New English File textbooks in a classroom

Each section is the New English File textbooks is designed to be used as a lesson. When students have a copy, they can get involved in the lesson themselves, clearly seeing where it is going and how it fits together. There is a good variety of exercises which cover different functions of language, and each section builds to an overall, consistent point. What’s more, it can be used for both classroom teaching and practice and as a workbook, to give students something to work on from home.

The textbooks have clearly been tested in practice, and do their best to keep things interesting. For instance in one textbook, we had sections about English slang and writing poetry, to demonstrate language points in use.

Benefits of New English File textbooks for students

These textbooks are designed to take a student comprehensively from one level to the next. There are range of books in each series, covering specific sections, so be careful which you purchase and try to understand how they are numbered. If you work through the complete pack you can be confident you have covered a whole level of English.

The books are not ideal for personal study on their own, and are by no means the best for private tuition, as many exercises are designed for groups of students, with interaction in mind. There are many exercises that can be completed in private, however, so as a textbook that bridges classroom study and personal study they are ideal.

Extra books and audio CDs

It’s worth using the audio CDs provided for listening exercises, as the producers have made an effort to provide a range of audio for students to learn from, considering different accents and different settings for learning English. It is also well worth using the teacher’s book, which gives further details on how to explain specific teaching points, as well as additional exercises, instructions and introductions to different topics.

New English File is available internationally, check out more reviews here on Amazon UK, or on the main site here.