Grammar for English Language Teachers is more than another reference grammar book for EFL teachers. It is a necessary tool for native and non-native, experienced or newly
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TEFL ReviewsReviews of books (and occasionally other resources such as software and games) of special interest to English teachers, edited by Alex Case. New reviews are added regularly. If you would like to review books for TEFL.net, please read this. Reviewed Aug 2010 by Michelle Worgan | Filed under Young Learners | 1 Comment »
 Primary Music Box Traditional songs and activities for younger learners is the subtitle of Primary Music Box and it gives an accurate description of what you will find inside. The book is a collection of photocopiable worksheets complete with comprehensive Teacher’s Notes that provide plenty of activities to use to accompany the audio CD. The book is organised into three sections by age and level (from 6 to 12 years and from beginner to elementary). Each section includes twelve songs that most teachers who have grown up in an English speaking country will be familiar with. Some are more traditional than others, but there are plenty of action songs (“The wheels on the bus”, “If you’re happy and you know it”) and amusing lyrics (“I found a peanut”, “On top of spaghetti”). Many of the songs remind me of my own school days when we spent many a Friday afternoon just singing songs, as a class or in a round. There is a small section on how to exploit songs in the classroom at the beginning of the book, including rounds, using props and adding new verses. Reviewed Jul 2010 by Carmela Chateau | Filed under Teacher Training | 1 Comment »
 Teach TEFL DVD - Teaching Vocabulary This video is the first in a series “aimed at helping EFL and TEFL teachers around the globe improve their understanding of good teaching practice”. As such, it definitely corresponds to a real need, as observing is almost certainly a very good way of understanding what teaching is all about. The best way to learn is obviously through teaching practice itself, but unleashing unprepared trainees on students is a bit cruel (for both the students and the trainees). Video is a useful tool for teacher-training, but it is unusual to find a professionally filmed video of a classroom situation. The series will therefore fill a useful niche in an ever-developing market. This vocabulary-based class is split up into short sections, each focusing on a separate part of the lesson. As the accompanying website www.teachtefl.co.uk indicates, the entire session lasted 90 minutes, but the overall runtime of the DVD is around 43 minutes. The parts of the Reviewed Jul 2010 by Lara Promnitz-Hayashi | Filed under Young Learners | Comment »
 Hip Hip Hooray! Pearson Longman has just released the second edition of their Hip Hip Hooray! series. The series has six different levels with a Student Book, Workbook, Phonics Book, Teacher’s Edition, Class Audio CDs, Activity cards, Picture cards, Poster pack and Active Teach for IWB. The Student Books are colorful and very easy to use. The very first page is an Evaluation Sheet where students can receive a written comment and rating as they progress through the sections in the book. There is a simple Contents page, followed by a more detailed Syllabus page. The Syllabus sets out each unit clearly with the grammar Reviewed Jul 2010 by Dave Allen | Filed under Linguistics | Comment »
 English Today If you’re reading this I can guess that you are either a language teacher (current, former or prospective) or that you have some other affiliation (work, pleasure or both) with the English language. You’re also likely one of 500 million speakers of the most global language in history. Nonetheless, I can’t possibly guess where you are right now – you maybe at home or at work, on a train or in a tuk-tuk, by the coast or in the mountains, for we English teachers manage to get almost everywhere, in the same way as the object of our profession manages to spread itself unceasingly into every sphere of the global human network. The language of the World Cup, as denoted by Fifa™, is English, and England, the birthplace of both English and football, nowadays has a major impact on neither. It is the de-facto language of academic Reviewed Jul 2010 by Malcolm Prentice | Filed under Teacher Training | Comment »
 The TKT Course Training Activities CD-ROM First a little background on the teaching qualification that this CD-ROM is intended to supplement. Unlike the better-known CELTA qualification, the Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT) is intended for both pre- and in-service teachers and does not aim at teachers who specialise in a specific age group or teach in a particular context. There are no entry requirements, no compulsory taught course and no observations of lessons, although an intermediate level of English (equivalent to CEFR B1) is recommended and there is an optional practical module. Introduced in 2005, the aim was to create a test any teacher or prospective teacher can take to certify their level of theoretical knowledge, split into three stand-alone multiple choice exams which are marked in bands 1 to 4, and with no failing grade. Reviewed Jul 2010 by Orlando Savage | Filed under Young Learners | Comment »
 Hot Spot 4 Hot Spot 4 is a book for “betweenagers”. Also known as young teenagers, this is a group you might not imagine being overly enthralled at the idea of a day spent learning English. Enter the Hot Spot series. Described as a “communicative course with an accessible grammar syllabus”, Hot Spot aims to appeal to these particular youth via lessons heavy on visual images and concise, punchy units. Reviewed Jul 2010 by Michelle Worgan | Filed under Young Learners | Comment »
 Super Simple ABCs Super Simple Phonics is a course designed for teaching the sounds of English to very young learners, in order to prepare them for reading in English. The aim of the course according to its website is “to instill confidence in young learners by making the alphabet as easy-to-teach and easy-to-learn as possible”. There are plenty of materials in the course to present and practise each letter, including flashcards, songs, games and worksheets. The variety of English used is American English.  The Developing Teacher Although I already have a thousand things I know I should be doing to develop my teaching (reading those books stacked up in my bedroom might be a start, and volunteering to be observed is always valuable torture), I was so intrigued by the idea of a whole book full of ideas on how to keep developing that I picked this title out of all the interesting-looking ones that Delta Publishing were offering in 2009. My main questions when I read through it were how much it would affect my development, what other kinds of people the book might be interesting for, and whether anyone would really want to read a whole book on the topic. Reviewed Jul 2010 by Dave Allen | Filed under Linguistics | Comment »
Language Teaching (henceforth LT) is one of our field’s longest running (since 1968) and most prestigious journals; getting published in it is only slightly short of getting knighted by the Queen. All exaggeration aside, LT’s most distinctive characteristic is its variety of article formats, including Plenary speeches, Research timelines, A country in focus, A language in focus, Surveys of PhD/ED.D theses, Annual reviews of research, Research in progress and the Comparative book reviews. I will look at these various types of article below. |