The Teaching of Structural Words and Sentence Patterns 3. [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Stage THREEof this series sets out more teaching items of the kind dealt with in Stage One and Stage Two. Almost all the teaching items which are to be found in the syllabuses published during recent years for the teaching of English as a foreign language are dealt with in these three books. Items not yet dealt with are those not suitable for oral presentation and oral drills, for example, the problems of reported (or indirect) speech, and non-defining (or non-restrictive) relatíve clauses. These need to be dealt with through written exercises, not by means of oral drills. Methods for presenting these items will be discussed in another book in this English-Teaching Library. There will be suggestions for designing and using suitable exercises. With Stage Three it becomes even more difficult, but alsó less important and less necessary, to arrange teaching items in the order in which they are likely to occur in textbooks. There is somé unanimity on the order of teaching items in the beginning stage. As the English course advances there is likely to be increasing divergence. Somé textbook writers, perhaps influenced by local examination requirements, will give prominence to reported speech in the third year; others will limit their illustration of this feature to quite simple examples. With Stage Three it becomes more necessary for the teacher to use his own judgement on what items deserve time and attention, and on what items may be dealt with briefly. The teacher has to decide which items need oral presentation and oral drills, and which items are best dealt with in the mother tongue. Vocabulary items are an obvious example. Many new words and phrases will occur. Are these to be identified by the use of demonstration procedures (drawings, pictures, activities, etc.), by contextual procedures, or by giving the equivalent in the mother tongue (or by requiring pupils to use a dictionary) ?