ESL Textbooks for University Students and Adults | ESL Books for Adults

Okay, so you’ve just been given a class to teach…and…you get to choose your own book. This can certainly be a good thing if you’ve been around the block a few times and know the options inside and out. However, there are so many ESL books for university students and adults that it can be hard to choose the best one.

Don’t worry, help is here. Check out my top recommendations for the best ESL textbook to use when teaching university students or adults in Korea, or around the world.

Keep on reading for my top ESL book recommendations, including the best options for business English lessons and teaching ESL writing. Let’s get to it so you can find the ESL book for adults that you need.

ESL Textbook Recommendations for Adults

I have a few recommendations for the best 4-skills textbooks that you’ll want to consider for university students or adults. I’ve based my recommendations on the following things:

• Student-centred, communicative approach
• Range of skills and activities
• Not boring/interesting topics
• Grammar and vocabulary sections are easy for the students to understand
• Well-organized
• Recycles previous grammar and vocabulary
• Easy to teach from, without a ton of supplementary materials

And then keep on reading for details about Market Leader, a college English textbook for business and Great Writing for teaching English writing. Without further ado, here are the best ESL books for adults to consider.

#1 ESL Textbooks for Adults: Four Corners

Four Corners is my favourite 4-skills book because the topics are interesting and the activities are engaging and interactive. It’s focused almost exclusively on real-life communication between students, which is definitely my style. It should be at the top of any list of the best ESL textbooks in my opinion. It really is that good!

If you teach in a university where there are mandatory freshman English classes (like South Korea), then this should be your go-to book. Even students who are not that happy about taking English classes don’t mind it! For a freshman English textbook, you really can’t go wrong with Four Corners.

If the teacher-centred lecture style is more your way, you’ll probably hate it. Most foreign teachers don’t teach this way though, so give this one a try. I’m sure you’ll like it. All of my coworkers that have used it over the years have been pretty impressed.

An indication of a good textbook, or not is how many of the pages I use. The worst textbooks is maybe 1 in 4 or 5. However, this book is good enough that I skipped very few pages and didn’t really have to supplement the lessons with my own materials. This is some serious gold for ESL books for adults.

You can check it out for yourself over on Amazon: 4 Corners, Level 1. Or, take a look at this chart with all the options for one of the best freshman English textbooks:

Learn More about the Four Corners ESL Textbook Series

Do you want to know more about some good ESL books for adults? Check out this short video to learn more about Four Corners, one of the best options for a freshman English book:

#2 ESL Textbooks: World Link

If your students are extremely low-level, World Link Intro will be a good choice for you. It’s extremely simple and the grammar and vocabulary are presented so that even the lower level students in your classes will get it. The activities are engaging and come from a communicative approach.

One of the best things about World Link is the teacher’s resource book. It includes a fun activity for each lesson like a board game or something like that. I generally do this kind of thing to round out a unit, so appreciated the fact that they’d already done it for me!

If you teach more advanced English learners, the rest of the book series is quite good too and you’ll likely be happy with it. I used Level 2 and 3 for years and my students really enjoyed it. Or, as least I think that they did!

You can find out more details about World Link over on Amazon: World Link Intro. Or, check out this chart with all the levels for this popular, 4-skills ESL textbook:

#3 ESL Textbooks: Touchstone

Touchstone is very solid and is probably the most popular ESL textbook series in the world, for good reason. This ESL book for adults provides a very comprehensive founding in the basics on English and nicely recycles grammar and vocabulary from level to level.

However, be warned! Level 1 might be too difficult for your students if they truly are very low-level, so World Link or Four Corners would be a better choice for you. However, for freshman English students in Korea, you should be fine with the level 1 in most cases, except at a very low level university.

Oh, and in case you’re like me and used to hate Touchstone, they’re come out with an updated version in the past few years that is just so much better. Seriously, it was so much better and I even changed my mind about it when I really didn’t expect to.

You can learn more about the Touchstone ESL textbook series on Amazon.com: Touchstone Level 1. Or, we’ve put together all the options in this handy comparison chart below:

If you want to see some of the tests and exams that you can use for this ESL book series, check out the following: Touchstone Final Exams.

Practice English Online With Touchstone, Book 1

Looking for good ESL books? Then you’ll certainly want to consider Touchstone. It’s a solid book with a ton of nice activities that you can do with your students. Find out more about a good ESL book in this short video below:

#4: Smart Choice

Another top option for one of the best ESL textbooks is Smart Choice. It’s a 4-skills ESL book that cover speaking, reading, writing and listening quite well, although it is a bit heavier on the speaking than other things.

The topics are interesting and relevant to students in most countries. In addition, there isn’t a lot of fluff in this ESL textbook and it’s easy to use most of the materials, games and activities from each page.

In terms of age group, it’s definitely a book designed for older teenagers or adults. I’ve used it with university students in South Korea in the past and found that it worked extremely well with them. Try out these ESL books for adults in your classes.

#5: Market Leader Textbook for Business English

If you teach business English, then you’ll seriously want to pick up Market Leader. It’s the best ESL textbook for this kind of thing and it’s just so much better than adapting a 4-skills book or searching around on the Internet for articles and other things to use.

There are interesting topics, excellent case studies and a whole host of skills that business people need to know like negotiation, phone skills, email, etc.

#6: Great Writing Series ESL Books

If you teach writing to English learners, then you’ll want to pick up the Great Writing Series. It’s the best writing textbook for ESL that I’ve run across and I’ve used various levels with lots of success over my years teaching in South Korean universities.

The series starts at the basic level of making good sentences and then progresses into paragraphs, essays and beyond. It combines the product and process approaches to teaching writing in a way that’s student-centred and engaging.

#7: 67 ESL Conversation Topics

Next up on our list of ESL textbook recommendations is this one: 67 ESL Conversation Topics with Questions, Vocabulary, Writing Prompts & More. If you teach conversation classes to teenagers or adults, either 1-1 with a student, or with a bigger class, then consider this option.

There are 67 well-planned lessons, on a wide variety of topics. There is a vocabulary focus, interesting conversation questions and then some writing prompts that are ideal for homework. It’s a nice way to get students talking and I’m sure you’ll like these lessons as much I do! Find out more about this ESL book for students here:

ESL Textbooks for Adults FAQs

There are a number of common questions that people have about choosing and using Adult ESL Books. Here are the answers to some of the most common ones.

Which English book is best for beginners?

If you’re teaching English to beginners, the best books to consider are Four Corners (level 1) or World Link (starter). They contain simple grammar and vocabulary but have a variety of interactive and student-centred activities, along with covering all four skills.

What is the best ESL textbook for business English?

If you’re teaching business English, then consider using the textbook series, Market Leader. It’s well-organized, interesting for the students and the teacher and comes in multiple levels.

What’s the best ESL textbook for teaching writing?

The best ESL textbooks for teaching writing are the ones in the Great Writing Series. The beginner books help students writing paragraphs and the more advanced levels cover 5-paragraph academic essays and beyond.

Do I need to use an ESL textbook for my classes?

Not using a textbook for an ESL class is known as “Dogme ELT.” The theory is that the lessons should be based on students’ needs instead of a pre-prescribed plan. This style of teaching certainly works well for some teachers.

Have your Say About the Best ESL Textbooks

What’s your go-to textbook for teaching English conversation or 4-skills classes for university students or adults? Do you have a favourite ESL book for students who are studying writing or business Is it one of these, or do you have another recommendation for us? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

Also be sure to give this article a share on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. It’ll help other teachers, like yourself save time when planning for their upcoming semester.

Last update on 2022-06-17 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API