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Start next week with Interchange books, any advice?

 
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Squid



Joined: 25 Jul 2003
Location: Sunny Anyang

PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2003 4:15 am    Post subject: Start next week with Interchange books, any advice? Reply with quote

Squid has a brand spankin' shiny new job, funky as hell!

Only thing is, I'll be using the Interchange series of books for some classes and have only teachered free talking with adults before...

Any sage words posterboys and girls?

Laughing all the way to the bank,

Squid.
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Walter Mitty



Joined: 27 Mar 2003
Location: Tokyo! ^.^

PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2003 4:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I used them for a year at my last job. We had the red and blue books (levels 1 & 2) and I liked them well enough. They can be pretty dry, so don't be afraid to deviate from the text a little. Some of the exercises are dull as dirt and should be skipped. There are Interchange activities in the back of the books, some of which can be fun, and some of which should be ignored. (The "swap meet" one in the red book is great. My students always loved haggling in English."

At my school we were told to cover 5-6 chapters per month as we used each book for 3 months. That's an okay pace to move at, but sometimes you'll have a fast-moving class and you'll need to come up with supplementary materials to slow their pace down.

Have fun with the material and it's an easy series to teach. Some of the stuff on the tapes is kind of goofy, but you (and your students) will get a good laugh out of it.
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Draven



Joined: 03 Feb 2003

PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2003 5:46 am    Post subject: Re: Start next week with Interchange books, any advice? Reply with quote

Squid wrote:
Only thing is, I'll be using the Interchange series of books for some classes and have only teachered free talking with adults before...

Any sage words posterboys and girls?

Squid.


Three main pieces of advice for you here.

First, make sure you get the Teacher's Guide. In my experience it's been really helpful for teaching the grammar points contained in the book.

Second, make sure you get the accompanying audio program. The dialogues written in the book are only half of what is available on the tape. The story continues past what is written in the book.

Lastly, don't neglect the activities associated with each chapter that are located in the back of the book. They often are very good for extra practice.

hth
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the_beaver



Joined: 15 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2003 5:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Draven nailed it. It's a good series when you use everything available to support it. As well, if you can get the activity books it allows the students to do extra work.
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Squid



Joined: 25 Jul 2003
Location: Sunny Anyang

PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2003 5:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the advice, I'm assuming by "Activity books" you mean Workbook, or are there associated texts for the students to buy?

I only have the Student books to look at for now, I'll be getting the Workbooks and the Teachers guide next week.

As for the amount of material to get through per class, I'm still floundering a bit with that one.
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some waygug-in



Joined: 25 Jan 2003

PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2003 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I used it, I found it pretty dull. Except for a few things. The customer complaints activity in Book 2 (blue) can be a riot with the right group. The workbook, well it's not that hot, but I suppose if you can get the students to use it, good on you. Any kind of writing exercise where they have to use the vocabulary from the lessons in the book would be helpful. I don't know how eager your students will be to do any kind of writing outside of class. Mine weren't, and didn't.

One other point I'd like to add: try to make the exercises apply to the students daily lives. What I mean by this is ask a lot of additional, personal questions on top of what is in the book.

Most of my students had not travelled outside of Korea, so the chapters that dealt with foreign travel were kind of meaningless to them. So ask a lot of questions about travelling in Korea.

I agree with the above posters about bringing in outside material. I used to have some outside activity for about half of each class period. It's nice if that activity can be related to the section you are covering in the book, but realistically, that is not always possible.

Anyway, I hope this helps
Cheers
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mj roach



Joined: 16 Mar 2003

PostPosted: Sun Aug 31, 2003 6:53 pm    Post subject: Start next week with Interchange books, any advice? Reply with quote

The pair work and group work exercises can be more interesting and productive if class members adopt another nationality when respondig to "How ...........in your country?" The appendix contains a list of countries and nationalities. Ask the students to choose any non-English speaking country and create a "persona" including name, age, job, city, etc. Stress the fact that they don't really need to know much about their "adopted" country/culture as any answer they give will be accepted. Adopt a Korean persona for yourself and provide model responses.
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rapier



Joined: 16 Feb 2003

PostPosted: Mon Sep 01, 2003 2:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I taught some adults last year with new interchange #2. They enjoyed the book- relevant topics to Korean life, useful, staged grammar exercises, colorful and attractively presented. Use the tapes as well, the students enjoy picking out vocab from them and practising it.

Book#1 I found good for teaching middle schoolers. its fairly less interesting than book 2, but useful for drumming basics of grammar into teenagers.
i also recommend mixing it with a variety of back-up material from other textbooks and sources...
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VanIslander



Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!

PostPosted: Tue May 18, 2004 4:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

How did the book turn out for the original poster?

I personally have never used Interchange because the graphics are just too weird for me, making it difficult to get my bearings, so less than straightforward for my students, I've thought.
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Ya-ta Boy



Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

PostPosted: Thu May 20, 2004 2:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

>>As for the amount of material to get through per class, I'm still floundering a bit with that one.<<

Notice that each chapter is divided into 2 'cycles', usually around Activity 6. That means there are two separate groups of activities in each lesson. Try to keep that in mind when designing a lesson.
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Squid



Joined: 25 Jul 2003
Location: Sunny Anyang

PostPosted: Thu May 20, 2004 3:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Old revitalized thread here!!

The books were ok, but if you stick to them too slavishly they'll bore you to tears.

Take plenty sideroads and tangents... and keep a copy for yourself with scribbled "romanized" translations of some of the vocab.

That job turned to custard after the boss couldn't pay me, so I left.
I'm now using a very similar looking text "Headway".
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