Dresser, Norine
Longman Publishing Group, 1993
ISBN 0-8013-0983-2
OUR OWN STORIES is based on the essays written by students at California State University, Los Angeles. Most of the students, who are children of immigrants from Asia and Latin America, were born outside the US. They write about their traumatic experiences while trying to become part of a new (US) culture. The stories are not fiction, they present true cultural conflicts caused by cultural differences and can serve as an excellent material for teaching case studies and intercultural communication skills. The book helps students develop respect for one another’s cultures, as well as learn more about one’s own culture.
Besides intercultural competence, the book helps increase students’ linguistic competence because exercises are built so as to develop reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. Moreover, activities are varied and encourage students, and also teachers, to have fun, e.g. role play and expansion sections.
All these make OUR OWN STORIES one of my favourite and, which is more, most effective teaching materials.
Submitted by Tatyana Zenkova, Pavlodar University, Kazakhstan
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Dave Willis
Harper Collins Publishers
ISBN 0 00 370563 3 Self – study Edition
The material of the book ‘COLLINS COBUILD STUDENT’S GRAMMAR’ is designed for both English Language students and teachers and can be successfully use at the at the secondary schools and at the Higher Educational Institutions. Besides, the book can be used for private study.
All the grammar explanations are presented in the left – hand pages, which consists of two columns. At the top of the page you can find a section headed “Main points.” It covers the summary of the important information of that unit.
The right – hand pages contain practical exercises for students to do. Bold triangle at the bottom of the page followed by the word ‘Bank’ suggests more practical material on the same topic, which is in the back of the book.
So, it is very simple for using to all level students. The real examples show the structures in use. The book contains supplementary materials in the Appendix, like Verb forms, which presents complete information about the Regular and Irregular Verbs; Bank of further exercises to cover all the grammar units of the book; Index to ensure easy access to the materials of the book.
The book tries to help the Learners of English an easy access to its resources. All the grammar terms are provided with the explanations and there are loads of illustrations and grammar exercises. I do believe that this grammar book has successfully solved the problem of ‘heaviness in the minds of our teachers’ to explain the ENGLISH GRAMMAR.
My judgement is based on my own experience, in other words I myself always use the book at my classes. I suggest this book for all ‘language teachers and students.’
Abdimitalip Tashmatov
Senior Lecturer, English Department, Talas State University, Kyrgyzstan
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Tomalin, B. and S.Stempleski. 2001
This book contains a lot of activities which can be used in class to develop the intercultural awareness and competence of students from elementary to advanced levels. The topics covered in this book include recognizing cultural images and symbols, working with cultural products, examining patterns of everyday life, cultural behaviour and communication and many others. The book provides ready made lesson plans with information about levels, duration, procedure, possible variations etc, which makes it really easy to use in class. The book has a language focus index where all the activities are categorised on the base of the skills involved and structures taught. You can also find there a list of textbooks for students, videos and other sources for teachers to raise their students’ cultural awareness.
Reviewed: Anna Fatneva
Lingua English Language School, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
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Klippel, F. 2002
This book contains over 100 communicative fluency activities with notes on aims, level, organization, time required and procedure. The activities included are guessing games, discussions, value clarification techniques etc. The book has a language focus index where all the activities are categorised on the base of the skills involved and structures taught. There is also an appendix with photocopiable hand-outs. It is a wonderful resource to supplement your course book.
Reviewed: Anna Fatneva
Lingua English Language School, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
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Kurt Scheibner (ed)
Heinemann, 1996
Ready-made English 1 photocopiable resource book provides communicative activities that will bring your classroom instantly alive. The worksheets contain stimulating and lively information gap activities, role-plays, vocabulary development activities and much more for all levels of students and can be used to supplement lessons or review specific language.
This photocopiable resource book has been specially designed for teachers to use in the classroom with:
- photocopiable worksheets for a wide variety of interesting activities.
- complete and easy-to-use teacher’s notes with suggestions for extensions and further practice.
- a comprehensive Contents Chart for quick and easy reference.
Reviewed: Gulzhainar Umralina,
Kazakhstan Aktobe
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Adrian Doff, Carolyn Becket , 1991 (first published)
Cambridge Skills for Fluency is a series of supplementary materials covering the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, each skill is developed at four levels, from pre-intermediate through to advanced.
The series aims to develop students’ confidence and fluency in English, by offering a variety of topics and activities which engage students’ interest and encourage them to share their personal reactions and opinions.
- The Listening books aim to develop students’ ability to understand real-life spoken English.
- The Speaking books aim to develop oral fluency by focusing on topics that are personally relevant to students.
- The Reading books aim to develop students’ skills in reading English.
- The Writing books place writing in a central position in the language class, presenting it as a creative activity which contributes to language learning in general.
Reviewed: Gulzhainar Umralina
Aktobe, Kazakhstan
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Watcyn-Jones, Peter
Pearson Education Limited, 2000
ISBN 0582461588
This book contains a lot of activities, which are grouped according to types of activities. It consists of eight sections: Ice-breaker activities, Simulations/role plays, Discussion/speaking activities, Quizzes, Card and Board games and Miscellaneous activities. Part 1 of the book gives detailed Teacher’s notes for each activity while Part 2 contains the various cards, handouts, etc. to be photocopied. Level: intermediate. Photocopiables (the material to be photocopied) are of two types: a) handouts which the students write on, and b) material which the students use but not write on them.
Reviewed: Saule Zhaparbekova
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
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http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/halfbaked/index.htm
Extremely powerful tool for developing interactive materials! You may be not satisfied with the kind of teaching and testing material you have got, or want to relieve yourself making students work on their own and get feedback at the same time – this is the site for you! It offers the program that lets you create 6 types of interactive exercises: multiple choice, short answer, jumbled sentences, crossword, matching/ordering, and gap-fill. You can cut and paste the text of your choice and adapt the level of task to suit the needs of your students. You may upload exercises onto the Internet or save them in electronic form to be used in the classroom.
There is a full downloadable tutorial in Russian (2,73 Mb). Although the program is free of charge for public and non-profit educational institutions, some advanced options for professional use require a licence. The use of the program needs registering for the key on every single computer.
Reviewed:Tatyana Kolesnikova
East Kazakhstan State University, Ust-Kamenogorsk.
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Seefeldt, Carol, Alice Galper
Pearson Education, 2002
ISBN 0-13-08 3433-5(pbk.)
Your school is on experiment? This teacher resource book is intended for teaching science to young learners (pre-school to young primary) using experiments, which makes it useful for primary school teachers of Science in English. It is suitable for teachers with limited training or formal preparation for teaching science.
It suggests learning by doing and, therefore, caters to children’s interests and needs, involves them in group work, investigations and projects. It has continuity, as exercises build on one another. It suggests developmental approach and gives children opportunity to think and reflect on their experiences.
What I liked about this book most, is suggestions for teachers to think of their own teaching and write their observations in a teacher diary. There are also photocopiable sheets with questions to evaluate children’s learning and encourage group observations. The book has an accompanying website with additional material and links to relevant sites at http://www.prenhall/com/seefeldt.
Reviewed: Tatyana Kolesnikova
East Kazakhstan State University, Ust-Kamenogorsk.
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