Exploring English [antikvár]

About the Course Cassell's Foundation English Course is a new four-book course (of which Exploring English was the first to appear) which takes the student from Beginner to Post-Intermediate level. The course combines the best features of the modern approach to language teaching with the best of the traditional. It is fresh in its approach and thorough in its teaching techniques. About the Authors of the Course Joanna Gray was for many years at Davies's School of English in London, latterly as Senior Tutor responsible for teacher training. She is now employed by the Department of Health and Social Security as Language Trainer in an experimental pilot project. Michael Thorn has taught at the Eurocentre in Forest Hill, London, for more than ten years and has wide experience of teaching students from many different countries at all levels. About the Teachers' Books The Teachers' Books, written with Susan Henderson, give detailed sample lesson plans, suggest a variety of classroom activities and discuss difficult language points. They also give the schpts of the listening activities, culture background notes where necessary and answers to all the exercises. About the Recorded Material Up to two hours of recorded matehal, including the listening activities, dialogues and drills, is available on cassette. About This Book This successfulintermediate coursebook helps the student who has completed a beginners' course over the difficult transition to intermediate competence. Although taking functional/notional developments into account, it is grammatically based and provides the student with the background he needs before beginning a First Certificate course. Grammar is tauglit through lively and natural texts, oral exercises, role-play and creative written work. The student is encouraged to use the language he has learned to express his own Ideas in discussion and composition. To the teacher Fashions change, not least in the world of teaching. Recently we have heard a great deal about Notional/Functional courses, and this "revolution" has made us all examine the ways we teach. The great advantage of the notional approach is that students can be taught to use the language for specific purposes, easily and quickly. Grammatically, "Would you like to come to the cinema this evening?" is a fairly complex item- more complex certainly than "Do you like films?" - but it might well be more useful, and thus we might wish to teach the more complex item first. However, many students of English go on to take the First Certificate exam, the Proficiency, or even 'O' Level English, and these students need a sound grammatical base. This then is a grammar based course, into which I have tried to incorporate lessons learnt while using the notional approach. A student who completes this course will be ready to move straight on to a First Certificate Course. Complicated grammar explanations don't help a student to speak or write a language accurately, but well chosen examples, thoroughly learnt, can help him towards that "feel" for the language, which is essential, if he is to speak and write naturally and well. Language is necessary for people to express real thoughts, and students should be encouraged to express real ideas, wherever possible. It is more useful practice for a student to say "My landlady was making the breakfast when I came downstairs this morning" - undramatic, but something which really happened - than "The gangsters were coming out of the Bank when the Police arrived" - dramatic, but not related to the student's own experience. To learn to speak a language, it is necessary to feel the thoughts one is expressing. For this reason each unit progresses from the text, in which the student will find "key" examples of the focal point, towards the "Ideas for Discussion" and "Composition", where the student will have the opportunity to give his opinion or talk about his own life. I am most grateful to Joanna Gray for all her hard work and helptul advice. She has done a lot to improve the manuscript, but my mistakes remain my own. London 1978 Michael Thorn