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"I used the book in my Low Beginning classroom
as soon as it arrived. The student response to the book was
encouraging; they understood the grammar points and companion
illustrations quickly. The exercises we worked on were cognitively
engaging and easy to follow. I liked them because they tuck
nicely into our thematic units. Plural rules accompany food,
prepositions accompany body parts, present continuous tense
describes the activities of people in a restaurant...and so
on. During our U.S. history & geography unit, we worked
on an activity on possessive pronouns from the book which
asks, "Whose is it?" People attending a carnival
(which is certainly a part of U.S., culture) are holding things
like cotton candy, hot dogs, and soda.
Just as important as the grammar points are the relevant
vocabulary words that the book introduces. The reproducible
work sheets make clean overhead transparencies that students
sitting way in the back can see with ease. Illustrations that
highlight the grammar points are free of any distracting details
resulting in nice, obvious visuals that clearly make their
point. I would easily place this book high on my favorites
list (which is saying something because for every book I keep,
I toss about three). Real Basic's clean, uncluttered approach
makes it a crisp, clear almost fool-proof addition to my arsenal
of class activities.
My only reservations about his book are, first, I would make
the names of the steady characters in the book obvious in
every visual. Drying the carnival activity, for example, I
had to refer to the front of the book to identify the characters
in order to pull this activity off with my class. I would
also make extensive revisions to A Teacher's Companion for
Real Basics because there are far too many cut-and-paste activities.
While these kinesthetic activities can be useful in class
from time to time, for teachers with open enrollment classes
where class size and individual attendance vary greatly from
one month to the next, these activities can try everyone's
patience. Teachers who borrow their classrooms from one period
to the next must either lug around 20 pairs of scissors or
cut up all these little cards ahead of time for each class.
Thanks very much for the opportunity to review this text.
It was fun to get to know a new book."
--ESL Teacher, Stephanis Thomas
Poway, California
email: lt;rae92064@yahoo.com
Hands-on-English
PO Box 256
Crete, Nebraska 68333 USA.
Telephone: 800-ESL-HAND (800-375-4263) - in the US.
Telephone: 402-826-5426
Fax 402-826-3997
e-mail: info@handsonenglish.com
http://www.handsonenglish.com
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