Beginners & Low levels

What is a good coursebook for beginners?

Written by Andrew Walkley on April 8, 2019. Posted in Beginners & Low levels, Chunks, Coursebooks, Developing materials, Grammar, Lexis. No Comments on What is a good coursebook for beginners?

In a pevious post I explained why the typical syllabus at low levels is bad, but this does leave the question what is a good coursebook for beginners? Obviously, the short answer to this question is our own book Outcomes Beginner, but in this post and others I’m going to set out a bit more about what our alternative A1 / A2 syllabus is, why I think Outcomes is a good coursebook for beginners. Having said that, I am not blind to the limits of using a coursebook – even a good one – and I will note these downsides also.An important point of principleBefore I talk about the...

Teaching grammar at low levels through chunks

Written by Andrew Walkley on March 28, 2019. Posted in Beginners & Low levels, Chunks, Core Principles, Coursebooks, Developing materials, Grammar. No Comments on Teaching grammar at low levels through chunks

We could be teaching more grammar at low levels through grammaticalized chunks. We already do it sometimes, but we do it very inconsistently. Ironically, that’s because the syllabus at low levels is defined by teaching grammar, rather than being guided by what students need and want to say. By teaching grammar through chunks we provide scaffolding for learners’ conversations at low levels.Would you like some more chunks?The best example of a grammaticalized chunk is frequently taught is Would you like …? Students are told it’s a ‘polite’ form of want, but no comment...

How (not) to teach … the present continuous

Written by Andrew Walkley on March 6, 2019. Posted in Beginners & Low levels, Coursebooks, Grammar, Teaching lexically. 10 Comments on How (not) to teach … the present continuous

I have already suggested that one way is to teach the present continuous is through a chunk. But I know some do not want to teach it this way. Instead, the preference is to teach the present continuous meaning by meaning.Divide and rulesIt is curious how grammar is sometimes divided up. For example, while most teachers nowadays are quite happy to section off Would you like … as some kind of lexico-grammatical structure that can be taught to beginners, the low-level syllabus still dictates that Have you been …? cannot be treated in this way (although … ahem … there are a couple of honourable...

Useful chunks to teach beginners: What’re you doing later?

Written by Andrew Walkley on January 14, 2015. Posted in Beginners & Low levels, Chunks, Coursebooks, Teaching lexically. 1 Comment on Useful chunks to teach beginners: What’re you doing later?

Lots of useful chunks that we could teach beginners, don’t get taught early on because they’re seen as examples of ‘advanced’ grammar. For instance, the common question What are you doing later? will be absent from most beginner courses and rarely feature even at Elementary or Pre-Intermediate because it’s ‘the present continuous with future reference’. Instead we focus on the nonsense of describing what people are doing in pictures and the like.. To me, this seems crazy as What are you doing . . . ? can be taught to almost absolute beginners as a useful chunk for...