Conversation in English [antikvár]

PrefaceConversation in English: Points of Departure, Second Edition, is designed for conversation and composition on the high elementary, intermediate, or advanced level. The difference among levels will lie in the degree of linguistic sophistication of the students' responses.There are fifty-one scenes, grouped arbitrarily. They cut across as many social strata and cover as many everyday necessities as possible, many of them with types of people and situations vahd equally for the student's home country as for English-speaking nations. Where differences of custom exist, many are either evident in the drawing itself or are noted in the textual material. The teacher may want to supply others.We have substituted situations from the First Edition with seven new lessons: "Sports," "The Menu," "The Family Budget," "The Dentist," "The Employment Agency," "The Symphony Orchestra," and "Working People." Also many of the eariier drawings have been updated to reflect contemporary male and female roles and changes in attire.The book is designed for flexibility and simplicity. Begin anywhere. Skip around among the lessons, backward or forward, as you wish. No progressive degree of difficulty is intended and no lesson depends on any other lesson. The specific vocabulary for each scene is self-sustaining for that lesson, so there is no need for a vocabulary at the end of the book. Omit whatever lessons may not be pertinent to the condition or interests of the class. One scene and its apparatus, if pursued in their entirety, provide sufficient material for a one-hour class.The title of the book with its reference to "points of departure" suggests the expansive way in which the various scenes should be used, with free and inventive response to pictorial suggestion. All of the situations are as modern and universal as possible and are cast into a series of questions whose ultimate aim is to expand conversations from, rather than Umit them to, the illustration.Each lesson has a drawing, a word hst pertinent to that illustration, a set of questions analyzing the content of the drawing, a set of "Points of departure" questions utiUzing the given vocabulary but not necessarily the drawing, and five suggested topics for discourse or composition. It is assumed that the students have already studied basic English grammar and have at their command a fundamental vocabulary (although an appendix of num-m