Speaking skills
We continue our series on skills books. This time we asked publishers to send us samples of books published in the past 12 months that are designed to help students develop their speaking skills. These are our first impressions of the books we received.
The first thing we noticed when we sat down to look at the books was just how few books there were on the table. The titles we did look at were very much for particular needs and exams. It could be that today's coursebooks have become so complete that there's no need for extra skills books. Most courses now come packaged with their own branded resource packs. Who needs more? Who has time for more? A few publishers think otherwise...
Dialogue
Activities (Cambridge) by Nick Bilbrough is one of the Cambridge
Handbooks for Language Teachers. It poses the question: Do your students
wonder why the language they cover in class is often different from
the spoken language they encounter outside the classroom? The aim of
the book is to provide practical ideas that encourage students to look
at spoken language in different contexts through the use of transcripts
and authentic conversations.
A look at the acknowledgments page quickly shows that a lot of the material in the book has come from a variety of sources including The Guardian newspaper, The Complete Fawlty Towers, Leonard Cohen, David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, and Luke Prodromou's First Certificate Star Student's Book!
A
17-page introduction follows that is perfect for any teacher, teacher
trainer or trainee who wants to take a detailed look at the importance
of dialogues in the classroom. It also looks at the history of dialogue
use in language teaching and even quotes from Streamline Departures,
which was the first course that one of us (and the book's author) ever
used. The dialogue included here is rather too familiar.
The bulk of the book is taken up with the classroom activities. There's a gradual progression through the book from activities that ask the learners to access dialogues receptively (that is, by listening to them and reading them) through to those that focus on learner production and creation of dialogues.
Each activity has a key that gives an outline of the activity, focus, level, time, and preparation needed. The book also includes a bank of dialogues which can be used with the activities or by teachers as models for their own material.
Finding the right dialogue for your class tomorrow might prove time-consuming and possibly frustrating, but as a book to consult or dip into, Dialogue Activities lives up to its subtitle: Exploring spoken interaction in the language class.
Listening
& Speaking (Macmillan) is a photocopiable activity book
written by Malcolm Mann and Steve Taylore-Knowles. The activities are
aimed at pre-university teenagers, and the themes are appropriate -
feelings, sport, the environment and shopping. The book is split in
half with the first half dedicated to listening and the second half
to speaking. The speaking half includes some listening activities, but
we couldn't find any speaking activities in the listening half. This
struck us as slightly odd, and without any introduction to the book
or teaching notes, we weren't sure exactly how the book works even though
it is a book for teachers.
Each thematic unit includes a "Grammar in Context" section that exploits the grammatical structures arising from the thematic development of the topic. This makes it possible to select a unit by topic, skills focus, grammar focus or vocabulary set. So, if you're looking for a source of additional listening and speaking material without the complications of teaching notes, check it out.
The
other title we looked at from Macmillan was Improve Your IELTS
Listening and Speaking Skills (Macmillan) by Barry Cusack and
Sam McCarter. This does exactly what it says on the cover. It's a book
for students preparing to take the IELTS examination and can be used
in class or for self-study.
IELTS is the International English Language Testing System. It measures ability to communicate in English across all four language skills - listening, reading, writing and speaking - "for people who intend to study or work where English is the language of communication". The test is taken every year in 120 countries, and is one of the fastest-growing English-language tests in the world.
Unlike the previous title, this book combines the listening and speaking activities in each unit. The units are based around topics that commonly come up in the real test. Each unit consists of four sections: "Topic Talk" has activities to introduce vocabulary. It's followed by "Listening Skills" and "Speaking Skills". The final section is a practice exam to test the skills learned.
The book's format and layout are clear, and the useful "Techniques Boxes" throughout reinforce key points on how to approach listening and speaking tasks. The book comes with two CDs containing 140 minutes of listening and pronunciation practice.
The Improve Your IELTS Skills series has three preparation courses, Academic Reading, Academic Writing, and Listening and Speaking. The three books in the series may be used together as a complete course or used to target specific skills. Alternatively, they can be used separately to supplement other coursebooks.
English
for Academic Study: Speaking (Garnet) is a university preparation
course developed in collaboration with the University of Reading. Written
by Joan McCormack and Sebastian Watkins of the University of Reading's
Centre for Applied Language Studies, EAS: Speaking is based on extensive
research into the needs of students. It aims to help students participate
effectively in academic seminars and discussions and to develop presentation
skills.
It was nice to see some colour after the black-and-white books we'd been looking at. But this book is exciting in other ways as well. Excellent, very complete, very thorough and well-structured were some of the adjectives being used in the iT's office.
Each of the book's 10 units is topic-based (for example, a healthy lifestyle, the world of work, the influence of the media, and so on). The discussions and presentations that students make are related to the topic of each unit. The written or listening texts are designed to give students different perspectives on the topic and also to help them give evidence to support their own ideas, giving them practice in one of the essential features of academic life.
There are between five and seven tasks per unit, all of which are meaningful, and listening practice is included throughout to provide models for the type of speaking in question. The topics feel relevant and not overly dense. There's also a bank of reading texts at the back of the book as well as audio transcripts.
The book boasts current source texts and activities relevant to the needs of students from a wide range of study areas. The methodology also feels up-to-date and cutting-edge. For example, each unit ends with a guided learner diary section to get students to think about the process of learning. As the introduction says, "What you put into the course will determine how much you get out of it." The book doesn't limit itself to teaching the output language and discourse features, but rather tackles the whole process of how to achieve objectives in different contexts.
There are four other titles in the EAS series, plus two Study Books. You can find out more at the Garnet Education website.
In October we'll be visiting the Frankfurt Book Fair, the most important trade fair for publishers in the world. We'll find out what the publishers are preparing for the coming year and we'll bring you a full report in the next issue.