Teacher Discussion Forums

[David Gallo]

I have been using Streamline since 1989. I teach individuals and groups of a maximum of 5 students. I have never found any other books with such excellent oral drills and exercises to get the students speaking. However, Streamline is just too old and getting hard to buy. Can anyone suggest a set of books that can be used to concentrate on making the students speak as Streamline can?

[Sally Olsen]

Nope. The oldies are the best. They had a simple format without a lot of colourful pictures pasted in collages and different methods of communicating like bubbles and graffiti. You know the material and how to adapt it, where it is going and how it is laid out. You have back up materials and anecdotes to go along with lessons and it is comfortable.

I don't know where you are but you could write the publishers and see where they sold the books. School storerooms often have great treasures like that in abundance. You could visit schools and they will probably be glad to be rid of them.

Otherwise you can put each page on an overhead or on the computer to show the whole class or on posters to put on the wall and copy anything that you want them to do or get them to copy from the master.

If the students really want something that looks more up-to-date you can reformat the old book and add pictures from your digital camera. By now you have a good idea what is hard for students, what is confusing, what needs more practice and how to do that so you can adapt the books to reflect those needs and then send it all off to a publisher.

You could also write the publishers and get them to send you free copies of their new material so you can choose something new. I have heard good things about "Cutting Edge".