teaching with a coursebook

One topic I've seen discussed a lot recently is the role of a coursebook in language learning. I have several colleagues who are extremely critical of coursebooks and proudly proclaim "I don't use books!" In my own teaching, I use coursebooks, but will alter the content from time to time and add other material when I think it's necessary.

Lindsay Clandfield created a summary of the pros and cons of using coursebooks over on Scott Thornbury's A to Z of ELT blog in May 2010.

For those who would like some practical teaching ideas for using a coursebook, Marisa Constantinides has a wonderful powerpoint titled Animating Your Coursebook. Also, Ken Wilson has more inventive ideas in his webinar, In The End, It's Only A Book.

Now I'd like to share with you a few ideas from my own classroom. I've used these four activities in my freshman and sophomore university classes in Taiwan. I hope you find them useful.

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1. Dialogue Reading Competition

Before class, prepare a handout with 4 two-line excerpts from dialogues your students have studied before. Make enough copies for half the class. Move three chairs to one side of the front of your classroom.

In class, announce that you're going to have a competition. Choose 3 students to act as judges. They should sit in the three chairs. Tell the other students that they will be reading a short dialogue in pairs for the judges who will decide which pair did the best job. Before passing out the handouts, remind the whole class about areas in which they can improve their performance, such as pronunciation, intonation, speed, volume and body language. Put students into pairs and give each pair a handout. Give them about 10 minutes to practice the first excerpt. Ask for two volunteers to perform the two-line dialogue for the judges. Let the judges make a quick decision, and then tell the class, giving reasons for their decision. Repeat this process once with other pairs. After the second round, ask the judges to find 3 other students to take their places. Get everyone to change partners. Repeat the same process with the two other dialogues.

2. Quizzing Teams

Before class, take a long dialogue that students haven't practiced before and make a copy of the tapescript. Divide it into two sections, and put each section on a separate handout. Make a few copies of each section.

In class, tell students that they will be working in two teams. Their task is to quiz the other team about half of a dialogue that they will only hear twice.

Divide the class into two groups. Explain that each group will get a handout containing half of a dialogue. (The groups will each get a different section.) Each group will read over the dialogue and think of 6 questions about it for the other group to answer. Their questions should include one "dummy" question, a question whose answer is not contained in the dialogue. After 15 minutes, each group will put their questions on the board. Then you will play the dialogue twice. Each group must listen carefully for the answers to the other team's questions. Then the teams will have a few minutes to write answers to the other team's questions on the board. In addition, teams should mark the "dummy" questions with a big X. The final stage is to let the groups grade each other's answers. You can give a prize to the winning team.

3. Extending a Dialogue

Before class, select a dialogue from your coursebook that your class has covered in the past few days. Think of four situations involving one or two of the characters in the dialogue. This might include a dialogue that occurred in the past, in the future, or a dialogue between one of the characters and a family member/friend/stranger. (You can even include the name of someone in your school or class!) Put a clear explanation of the situation on top of a sheet of paper, assigning one role as A and the other as B. Write A and B four times vertically on the left side of the page, representing 8 lines of dialogue between A and B. Prepare a copy of each situation handout.

In class, put students into four groups. Remind them of the dialogue they covered before by briefly reading it out or playing the audio. Tell the groups that they will be writing a dialogue about the characters in the dialogue. Encourage them to make it funny or crazy if they wish. Give each group a handout and ask them to work together to create the first two lines of dialogue. Then ask each group to pass their handout to another group, who will complete the next two lines. Continue until the dialogues are complete. Finally, ask each group to practice the dialogue for a few minutes. Pick a pair from each group to perform their dialogue for the class.

4. Secret Life

Before class, copy the faces of four characters from previous units in your coursebook. Put each face on a separate sheet of paper and add a title such as "The Secret Life of Jim". Add four sentences starters to each page (some examples - One thing Jim's friends don't know about him is . . . or Jim will never forget the day he . . . or Jim hopes that some day he can...) Print these out on large sheets of paper. You should have one handout for each character.

In class, hold up your coursebook and say the names of the characters. Ask students what they remember about them. Tell the class that you're going to give them an opportunity to think more about these people. Put students into four groups, and give each group a handout. The groups will now work together to complete the sentences. Encourage them to be as creative as possible. When they're finished, ask the groups to put their handouts on the board for the entire class to read.

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(For more practical teaching ideas, seek out a copy of my latest book, Provoking Thought.)

What about you? If you're working with a coursebook, what are some interesting games and activities you've developed to give students more practice? Post them here for everyone to read.

Free stuff from publishers

I've been looking over several ELT publisher websites recently, and I've been impressed with the amount of things offered for free. I don't intend to create a comprehensive list here, but just list a few examples.

Many publishers provide book previews. For example, Cambridge University Press offers a few sample activities from their popular handbooks for teachers series, as well as some handouts and activities from their copy collection. Helbling, Delta and Oxford also offer some similar previews. For example, on this page you can try out four sample activities from Daniel Martin's book Activities for Interactive Whiteboards. And here, you can see an activity from David Heathfield's title Spontaneous Speaking. And this page takes you to several activities from Jamie Keddie's Images.

Another free resource is the unique page (or even site) given to a book. Cambridge offers pages for several of their books, including Working with Images by Ben Goldstein, as well as The Internet and the Language Classroom. Macmillan has set up a very impressive site for Lindsay Clandfield's new series, Global. This site features teaching tips, elessons (by It's Magazine editor Robert Campbell, teacher blogs, not to mention a sample chapter from Global Pre-Intermediate. Pearson Longman also has websites for over 70 of its titles. Moreover, they give out lesson plans and practical articles about teaching absolutely free.

Other offerings include blogs from famous names in ELT, author videos, conference handouts and sample chapters. Over at Delta Publishing, you can find a Delta Development Blog, featuring Scott Thornbury, Mario Rinvolucri, among others. The blog currently features Chaz Pugliese, author of the soon-to-be-released Being Creative. Michigan University Press has a series of videos associated with several of their titles. They also provide sample chapters, such as a web-only chapter, Drills, Dialogues and Role Plays, from Tools and Tips for Using ESL Materials by Ruth Epstein and Mary Ormiston. Alta Publishing has a great page of handouts from conferences with a lot of practical activities.

With this many free articles and activities, I look forward to the day when all ELT titles are available online (and at the same time, authors are offered multimillion dollar salaries). Well, maybe I'm dreaming...

I get the feeling I've only scratched the surface here. Anybody out there care to recommend any free resources by the publishers mentioned above that I neglected to mention? Or maybe an ELT publisher that I haven't heard of yet?

new article in ESL Magazine

A former colleague, and good friend, Andy Starck, was recently published in an issue of ESL Magazine. He wrote a colorful piece about his experiences teaching at a university in southern Taiwan, titled "Time for Change". Although the article is not available on the ESL Magazine website, I highly recommend it to anyone who has access to the latest issue.

new article on Web 2.0

I really enjoyed this new article by Cristina Arnau Vilà, an EFL teacher in Spain:

http://www.hltmag.co.uk/dec09/mart02.htm

A clear introduction to Web 2.0, as well as many fascinating links (warning: you'll probably spend a few hours on the computer after reading this article!) Great stuff!

Book preview

Humanising Language Teaching webzine has just published a book preview of my new book, Provoking Thought. It contains a brief description of the book, along with 6 activities. Take a look:

http://www.hltmag.co.uk/oct09/teach.htm

Creative Problem Solving

I've got a new article over at Humanising Language Teaching about Creative Problem Solving. If you are working on a project with your classes, or would like to help students practice both creative and critical thinking, you might want to read about CPS.

A book I'd like to read

Helbling Languages has a new book that sounds very interesting. Imagine That! Mental Imagery in the EFL Classroom by Jane Arnold, Herbert Puchta and Mario Rinvolucri is all about using students' imagination. It has 5 sections - Visualisation Training, Language in Mind, Stories Stories Tell, Images of Time and Space, and Spinning Inward. The book includes a CD-ROM with music, artwork, photos, photocopiable worksheets, and visualization scripts. There's an article about this book which includes several sample activities here. I'm looking forward to reading it and trying out some of the activities in my classes.

More articles

I have added several of my articles to my website. You can see the list here:

http://www.hallhouston.com/articles.htm

new article

I just had another article published. This time it's at developingteachers.com:

Warming Up to Creativity: Starting Points

In addition, I was mentioned at the Tech ELT Blog:

http://www.ihes.com/bcn/tt/eltblog/blog/

New page for my book

The publisher has generously added a page of information about my book to the Lynx Publishing website. Take a look...

The Creative Classroom

New publishing news

I've just got word from my publisher that the first few copies of my book, THE CREATIVE CLASSROOM, have just been printed. She says they look GREAT! She's going to send me a few copies soon, and I'm really looking forward to seeing them.

In the meantime, head over to the Lynx Publishing website, as my book should be on sale in the next few weeks.

...and another...

Yes, that's right, my adoring fans. I've got another article published. This one is in Humanising Language Teaching. Its title is Activities for Boosting Creativity. If you like the activities in the article, look for my new book, THE CREATIVE CLASSROOM, which will be published in a few weeks by Lynx Publishing.

another article published

I wrote a lesson plan about brainstorming that was published last week on The Internet TESL Journal. It's called A Brainstorming Activity for ESL/EFL Students. I am always looking for new ways to get my students brainstorming and doing other kinds of creative work.

Promotion

I'm giving away a copy of my book, along with several other Lynx Publishing titles. If you are interested, send me a copy of your best teaching idea. For more information, go here:

free BOOKS!!!