Writing Canadian English: Beginning Student Workbook. 2nd ed.

Lori A. Dunn is a ESL teacher, instructional designer, and freelance
writer in New Westminster, B.C.

Aimed at supplementing an ESL course for immigrants new to the country,
this series of books deals with the topics of education, using the
library, dealing with emergencies, driving a car, taxes, and adapting.

The major strength of the series is the teachers’ handbooks. In these
guides, grammar lessons are laid out for the teacher to present as he or
she wishes, with supplementary lesson guidelines, ideas for
role-playing, outings in the community, and connections to the real
world. The clear explanations of grammar will be of particular benefit
to the novice teacher or to the teacher who is without other resources.

As a writing course, the series has some limitations. There are no real
rhetorical points addressed, since most of material covers only
narrative and descriptive writing. The focus on grammar is at the
expense of sentence combining and other writing techniques. As well, the
books themselves are not imaginatively formatted. That said, the
workbooks offer accessible vocabulary, realistic contexts, and practical
writing activities.