What do you think of the Headway series - Good or bad?

[bradwelljackson]

Oh yes, this might not be the appropriate group for this question. If not, please direct me to another group on Dave's. Thank you : )

[fluffyhamster]

A decade ago, when I was a relative newb in China, I recall the lowest level Headway book (Headstart?) being used satisfactorily with low- or zero-level beginners (nowadays though there are probably more competing publications available); for the more intermediate levels however, other books/ranges and their supplementary packs seemed more popular among colleagues. One reason for this could be that Headway books often have quite long receptive-skills passages forming the basis of many their units - good for improving listening and especially reading generally (according to the standard so-called "communicative" mantra) - but if the texts' topics (and their ultimate exploitation language- and especially grammar-wise) doesn't appeal then there is obviously little left to use in the book; another connected point is that the layout of the books makes it difficult to select and copy discrete parts (but then, this is a fault of quite a few books generally).

These impressions were reinforced quite recently when I was expected to teach at a school in the UK using mainly the Advanced stage of Headway (I'm not entirely sure if it was the New Headway or an older edition): in the first unit, there was a series of long readings about immigration into the US through Ellis Island (who knows if this would be stimulating for students), but from those dozens of sentences only one was seized upon as a temporary grammar focus (the rest of the language work was quite a jumble of stuff that I'd hardly have called advanced-level work). It all ultimately seemed to smack of random exposure receptively, and recycling of lower-level language points, doubtless in the hope that something would stick. Anyway, I didn't take the job, because quite apart from the book forcing me to ask crap questions and set BS tasks in between just opening the book at page whatever or playing the tape, the admin at the school forbade the use of any supplementary (self-developed) activities or material outside the book or banks of mainly CUP supplementary stuff (you know, by the likes of Penny Ur etc). Oops going off at a bit of an autobiographical tangent there!

A somewhat more positive reaction to the book, but probably Alex was more compelled to teach and thus become more familar with it than I wanted to become (you know what they say about familairity breeding contempt (yet more in my case, given my initial gut reaction!)):
http://www.tefl.net/reviews/new-headway-advanced.htm

[fluffyhamster]

Also spotted this ('An Evaluation of New Headway Upper-Intermediate'), haven't read the pdf but it could be informative:
http://www.cels.bham.ac.uk/resources/es ... nalli3.pdf

[Macavity]

I've been using the series for a while, mainly at the starter and elementary levels, and whilst it has a lot of positives it just seems to lack any real sense of direction. it's OK if you're busy and don't have so much time for planning, as you can get away with just opening the book and teaching from there, to help with this the teacher's book is very good. One word of warning though - try to listen to the class CD before using it as the recordings aren't the best and aren't always even there! Oh and I refuse to believe that anyone could possibly go through life with the name MacSporran

[bradwelljackson]

I'll put my 2 cents in and say that I think the Headway series is fantastic. I have to admit right away that I do not have an expansive knowledge of English Grammar books (I grew up on Warriner's, after all). But with the little knowledge I have, I must say that I like very much the idea that they keep stressing the same grammar points by returning to them lesson after lesson. I think this is very important since language is such a gradual and developing process, and the students will simply forget (the present perfect continuous, for example), unless they keep using it consistently.
The Headway series is also very user friendly and laid out well.

[Eric18]

While the Headway series is not my cup of tea, I vividly recall that three English teachers - all from the former Soviet Union - loved the series. As the academic director of an adult education center, I listened to their recommendations with interest. They were adamant that the series was far superior to Azar or the Grammar in Use series.

Although I went with a textbook that more clearly matched the California adult education standards, I also purchased a class set that they could share with their Russian immigrant students. I was quite surprised that the students clearly shared their instructors preference.

Would I use it for a multiethnic, multilingual class of English language learners in California? No. Would I consider ordering it for a class of Russian speakers? Absolutely!