Learner-based teaching

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This popular series gives teachers practical advice and guidance, along with resource ideas and materials for the classroom. The tasks and activities are clearly presented, and offer teachers the information they need about level, time, preparation, materials, classroom management, monitoring, and follow-up activities. Each book offers up to 100 ideas, as well as variations that encourage teachers to adapt the activities to suite their individual classrooms.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• The authors and series editor
• Foreword
• Introduction
• How to use this book
• 1 Grammar exercises and drills (10 activities)
• The activities are structured around three different aspects of grammar work: tasks requiring learners to use a particular structure or language point
• tasks structured to exploit a more general notion, such as past time
• and tasks drawing upon the learners' formal knowledge of the target language and its grammar rules.
• 2 Vocabulary (10 activities)
• All these activities aim at expanding vocabulary. They are structured in such a way that they reveal lexical gaps and give learners a chance to fill them, so that students have more control over what they learn.
• 3 Integrated skills (10 activities)
• These activities aim at improving the learners' general competence in the target language.
• Each activity contains elements of all four basic skills.
• 4 Writing (10 activities)
• In these activities writing is never carried out in isolation, but is the main focus in an integrated and interdependent activity.
• 5 Translation (10 activities)
• The activities in this section fall into two types: firstly, those which encourage the learner to bring an example of their first language use into the classroom and then work on how to express this in English
• Secondly, there are activities which call on learners to dip into their collective cultural heritage in remembering songs, poems, stories and so on.
• 6 Games (10 activities)
• In these activities learners are involved not only in the playing, but also in the preparation of the games
• This means learners have meaningful language practice before they play - for example, some of the activities require learners to write clear instructions for the other players.
• 7 Exam preparation (10 activities)
• These activities offer learners practice in dealing with examination-type exercises without doing old papers
• 8 How to think learner-based teaching
• This section is divided into three parts
• The first encourages teachers to consider how much learner-based teaching already exists in their teaching
• The second presents two activities to show in detail how lessons can be planned on the principles of such teaching
• The third suggests stages for teachers to introduce teacher-based teaching into their repertoire