So I got hired to teach a class to English language foreign learners, but everything I suggest needs to go through a supervisor and they're pretty strict with what I pick.
The class itself is 90 minutes a class, two classes per week. Each week should have some 'theme'. Some examples we've had are food told through stories (ruth reichl), magical realism from the first chapters of two different books, two articles on different parenting styles, etc. The themes are relevant because I also make a weekly homework assignment.
The level itself can't be too hard. They are advanced English learners but I tried proposing reading a Bertrand Russel essay cause it's not that hard to read linguistically but that got shot down cause it was too dense.
We went with some short stories but also some excerpts from books. But books have a restriction too. For instance, first chapter of The Giver was shot down too cause I was told "the story builds on itself too much" or something.
I'm really scrambling to find material. The advisor even told me 'oh no one even reads these days. do you read?" which gave me the sense that anything can go in this class.
So if I could summarize exactly what I need:
- Material that's self contained and can be read and analyzed in a 90 minute session
- Materials that have some connection with one another. The connection can be broad or narrow, but just not be totally unrelated
- Material that is written in native English and not too old (let's say 1970ish is the lowest we can go)
- something that's around an early high school level at its hardest
I hope this is even an answerable question. I hate to take my problems on reddit but I would really appreciate any and all help.
by pouyank