Writing texts for teaching advanced students of English as a foreign language
Budget: €10 – €40 EUR
Hi there,
I’m an ESL teacher from Prague and as I prefer working with authentic interesting texts to using regular TEFL textbooks I need quite a lot of such texts. In this project, I would like to end up with several authors who have both the writing style and the feel for the language that writing this kind of texts takes, and who would collectively supply several dozen texts.
REQUIREMENTS
Length
roughly 1200-1800 words per text, but it could be as few as 500 or way more than 1 800 as long as the text can be serialised in 1200-1800 word chunks.
Audience
Advanced to near proficient students of English. Adults, mostly college/university graduates or undergraduates in their 20s, 30s and 40s.
Purpose
The texts will be used for teaching English as a foreign language in my classes. They will provide material for presenting new vocabulary (words, idioms, typical collocations and other 'lexical chunks') as well as speaking practice usually through in-class reproduction (carried out more creatively than the word sounds :).
Content
Engaging stories, a variety of contexts and voices. Personal everyday stories ' you're not going to believe what happened to me...), bios of ordinary people, forgotten historical figures, not so ordinary, yet not necessarily famous people, bits of interesting popular science or history, you get the idea. The only requirements are enough memorable information/action in the text and the high engagement factor, the story just must be fun to read and retell/discuss. Most texts meant for language textbooks are highly sanitized not to offend anybody. Because of my audience and use, there is no need for that here. These texts shouldn't cry 'textbook material' and could contain elements that might be considered unsuitable for wider educational contexts. They could even be controversial as controversy is a good starting point of a discussion.
Language and style
As teaching English is the whole point here, the role of the language is obviously paramount. The tone should mostly be conversational rather than literary, the vocabulary everyday, yet idiomatic, rich and colourful. Most native speakers have difficulty finding the language that is useful for advanced students, assuming they need the kind of vocabulary even less educated native speakers struggle with and not paying enough attention to their real needs - understanding dialogue in a Netflix series, communicating with their co-workers from around the globe etc.
The attached text samples will give you a more concrete idea of what I'm after in terms of content, style and language. They have bits of text in bold to give you an idea of what kind of lexical material we work with.
Originality
The stories and ideas do not need to be original. To use a music analogy, I will always prefer a great cover to a mediocre original. Building on ideas and narratives from elsewhere may actually be the shortest and surefire way to an engaging class text and it is just fine as long as the final text doesn't infringe anyone's copyright. (I may want to publish some or all of them on my teaching website).
Interested?
If you are, please get in touch and send me a few pieces of writing from your portfolio that you find relevant. I would also appreciate it if you could let me know your rough remuneration estimate and any other conditions. Feel free to ask any questions or share/test any ideas you might have. If I think we could be a good match, we can discuss further.
I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
Pavel
I’m an ESL teacher from Prague and as I prefer working with authentic interesting texts to using regular TEFL textbooks I need quite a lot of such texts. In this project, I would like to end up with several authors who have both the writing style and the feel for the language that writing this kind of texts takes, and who would collectively supply several dozen texts.
REQUIREMENTS
Length
roughly 1200-1800 words per text, but it could be as few as 500 or way more than 1 800 as long as the text can be serialised in 1200-1800 word chunks.
Audience
Advanced to near proficient students of English. Adults, mostly college/university graduates or undergraduates in their 20s, 30s and 40s.
Purpose
The texts will be used for teaching English as a foreign language in my classes. They will provide material for presenting new vocabulary (words, idioms, typical collocations and other 'lexical chunks') as well as speaking practice usually through in-class reproduction (carried out more creatively than the word sounds :).
Content
Engaging stories, a variety of contexts and voices. Personal everyday stories ' you're not going to believe what happened to me...), bios of ordinary people, forgotten historical figures, not so ordinary, yet not necessarily famous people, bits of interesting popular science or history, you get the idea. The only requirements are enough memorable information/action in the text and the high engagement factor, the story just must be fun to read and retell/discuss. Most texts meant for language textbooks are highly sanitized not to offend anybody. Because of my audience and use, there is no need for that here. These texts shouldn't cry 'textbook material' and could contain elements that might be considered unsuitable for wider educational contexts. They could even be controversial as controversy is a good starting point of a discussion.
Language and style
As teaching English is the whole point here, the role of the language is obviously paramount. The tone should mostly be conversational rather than literary, the vocabulary everyday, yet idiomatic, rich and colourful. Most native speakers have difficulty finding the language that is useful for advanced students, assuming they need the kind of vocabulary even less educated native speakers struggle with and not paying enough attention to their real needs - understanding dialogue in a Netflix series, communicating with their co-workers from around the globe etc.
The attached text samples will give you a more concrete idea of what I'm after in terms of content, style and language. They have bits of text in bold to give you an idea of what kind of lexical material we work with.
Originality
The stories and ideas do not need to be original. To use a music analogy, I will always prefer a great cover to a mediocre original. Building on ideas and narratives from elsewhere may actually be the shortest and surefire way to an engaging class text and it is just fine as long as the final text doesn't infringe anyone's copyright. (I may want to publish some or all of them on my teaching website).
Interested?
If you are, please get in touch and send me a few pieces of writing from your portfolio that you find relevant. I would also appreciate it if you could let me know your rough remuneration estimate and any other conditions. Feel free to ask any questions or share/test any ideas you might have. If I think we could be a good match, we can discuss further.
I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
Pavel