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Next text-book

 
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mondrian



Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Posts: 658
Location: "was that beautiful coastal city in the NE of China"

PostPosted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 12:05 pm    Post subject: Next text-book Reply with quote

I am coming to the end of the New Interchange Book II (the blue one: euphemistically called Intermediate level) that I use as my teaching aid.
Prior to this one I have used the Introductory (yellow book) and Book I (red cover).
Having looked at the next one in the series (green cover), I am a bit worried about the large jump in the learning curve for these bright students of mine.
I can change text-books, but the new one should "slide into place".

Any suggestions?
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latefordinner



Joined: 19 Aug 2003
Posts: 973

PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 10:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Same problem here. Accentuating the difficulty is that the class audiotape for book 3 is noticeably faster and a bit less clear than the first two. I now print out the audioscript and give it to 2 students to read.
One thing that helps the whole thing fit together well is the fact that the books all follow the same format. By book 3 the Ss all understand my routines and what seatwork, pairwork and groupwork are, to the point where I can assign 2 to 4 students to teach a portion of a given unit (It's an exercise in giving directions). I spend a lot of time on class discussions/digressions, playing western music (cloze tests), and role plays. I also try to back-track whenever the unit topic or grammar focus touches on something we've done before. The luxury of having the same class and the same series of books for a whole year, and having the flexibility to make or spend time where it seems nexessary. If I had to start with book 2 and move onto book 3 on a tight schedule, the problems would be huge.
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kev7161



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 5880
Location: Suzhou, China

PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Have you gone through Book A and B of each level? If I remember correctly, there are 8 units per book (16 units per color level). If you have, and you've been thorough and precise in your teaching, then I don't foresee the problems of moving on to the next color level (but you are right, the Green level certainly starts becoming more complex). If you feel that your students are not quite "getting it", then there's nothing wrong with going back and reviewing previous units.

Try and come up with some games and other activities that relate to those previous units. They can be as simple as word search puzzles for vocabulary to role playing (you give them the topics, they create a role-playing scenario). If you didn't do it before, you can try a "What happens next" bit for the dialogues: re-practice the dialogues in the book, then have groups of two or three come up with a minute or two of . . . what happens next. You can either put them on the spot or give them some time to write out what they are going to say and do.

You can create new quizzes based on the formats given in your teacher's texts. Of course, my guess is you are doing a so-called "conversation" class and you are nearing the end of the school year. What are some topics you can discuss that will give students a chance to use what they've (allegedly) learned in the past several months? Better yet, have the students come up with things they want to talk about.

If nothing else, finish up the text and then find some activities online or turn to news stories (local and abroad) to come up with suitable topics or research projects. What about a socially relevant movie that you can watch, discuss, have worksheets (listing possible slang, vocab, unusual terms) ready, etc.? Would your kids have fun putting together a performance of some sort you could show off at the end of the year?

How's their pronunciation? Are you happy with it? Have you tried tongue twisters in class? Make it a competition with some really cool prizes so they really want to try. Other games: Charades, pictionary, Scrambled words and/or sentences, hmmm . . . what else?

I have no idea what your school situation is, just throwing out some suggestions for you to ponder.
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