Making the most of your Textbook by Neville Grant (Longman Keys to Language
Teaching, Longman 1996) ISBN 0-582-74624-8
Longman Keys to Language Teaching are full of practical suggestions for lessons
and activities which will help you in your daily teaching. They are written in clear,
jargon-free English so you can read them quickly and refer to them easily as you need
them. The authors are all experienced teachers who give straightforward advice on
basic teaching techniques.
Making the most of your Textbook shows that you can teach more efficiently and
increase your students' level of motivation simply by adapting the class textbook.
It includes:
- Chapters examining the ways in which textbooks present the four basic skills of
reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
- Examples from a wide range of textbooks accompanied by detailed lesson plans
which show you how to adapt any material to suit your students.
- Suggestions for general techniques and activities which you can use to supplement
your textbook and improve the quality of your daily teaching.
- Helpful summaries at the end of chapters for quick reference.
-
Questions and activities which will help you to use new ideas successfully in your
own classroom with your own students.
Neville Grant is the general editor of the Longman Keys to Language Teaching
series. He has taught extensively on teacher-training courses in many countries and he
is an experienced author of ELT books.
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Contents
Preface
Introduction
- Who needs a textbook?
- Questions and activities
1.
-
Students, teachers, and textbooks
reasons for learning
learning styles
teaching styles
different kinds of textbook
the teacher's role
questions and activities
2. Listening skills
- the aims of teaching listening skills
-
using the course listening materials
supplementing the course listening materials
questions and activities
-
references
3.
-
Speechwork
drills
communication activities
natural language use
summary
-
questions and activities
references
4.
-
Speechwork: case studies
case study 1: turning language study into language use
case study 2: supplementing drills with communication practice
summary
questions and activities
references
-
addendum: a sample lesson plan
5.
-
Reading at elementary level
basic comprehension skills
reading materials and the textbook: some possible approaches
more authentic approaches
summary
-
questions and activities
-
references
addendum: oral questioning
6.
-
Reading at intermediate and advanced levels
aims when using a reading text
methods for teaching reading
real-life reading skills
reading for gist
reading for information
reading for study
-
an efficient study method: P3RU
summary
questions and activities
-
references
7.
-
Writing skills at elementary level
the writing exercises in the textbook
testing and training
personalizing exercises
writing for a purpose: 1 functional, 2 personal, 3 imaginative
-
summary
questions and activities
references
8.
-
Writing skills at intermediate and advanced levels
the teacher's decisions
writing purposes
an approach to composition writing
summary
-
questions and activities
references
9.
-
Choosing and evaluating textbooks
evaluation --- a three-stage process
choosing a textbook: questionnaires
questions and activities