Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bassexpander]

Anyone else teaching Touchstone by Cambridge?

It seems to have one decent chapter, followed by one or two that are just the same old topics I've seen before. I'm having a difficult time keeping students on task.

It's like there's a hit chapter, followed by filler for the sake of having more exercises and chapters.

The book appears to be very well laid-out, but seems to have too many exercises going different directions -- often including vague exercises that leave me wondering why we bothered.

It looked great at first, but I'm not impressed with it as far as content is concerned.

Your thoughts?

[Easter Clark]

I like the topics and the grammar and vocabulary points. I also really like the listening tasks--some of the most "realistic" I've encountered, even at the lowest level (Book 1). I find that I have to supplement a bit, and the workbook makes for great handouts.

Actually, I usually teach the first two sections (A & B) from any chapter and skip the last two (C & D), as the conversation strategies are a bit over my students' heads.

That said, I think Andrew Finch's material (much of it available for download) works much better.

This semester I had my school print and bind a copy of "Tell Me More" for each of my grade 1 HS students and so far it's a hit! The grade 2s are still getting my PPts based on Touchstone, and while the classes aren't bad, the grade 1s are really up and running.