For as long as I remember, there have been many approaches to teaching English. Nowadays, most teachers agree that English has to be taught in English. I have to recognize that I agree, too. However, and many other teachers believe so, teaching English to a teenager with no or with very limit knowledge of the language implies a different approach.
Why? Because these young students have already a solid level of their native language, a structure of language and therefore a structure of thinking. They think in Spanish, they organize their ideas in Spanish. And they want, in many cases, responses in Spanish. And explanations, as well.
There is something else: this series of books are written for students of public schools (junior high, high schools) with no prior study of English, or at least not a serious one. This book is not intended for someone who has been through a bilingual process the past 6 years of their life or for someone who has been receiving English classes as part of their regular education.
This series of books require a committed teacher, a devoted one. They need a creative, dynamic and very professional teacher. The books are not designed to cover a course. They are designed to give the student the communicative basics of the English language.
Each post can work as a guide for the student and as a lesson plan for the teacher. And every lesson will give the student the communicative elements (grammar, language and context) to connect and continue with the next one.
Dear teacher: think of every lesson plan as a possibility to generate the four different skills in your students, but also to promote social and humanistic abilities. As you will see, every post will include activities in which they have to practice in pairs, in teams, in small groups or as a whole group. Sharing their learning achievements and goals will increase their motivation and will offer an opportunity to make them more confident not only in their English class but also in their every day life.
The last thing: as you will discover, there is not a traditional way to measure the progress of your students: there are not written exams, no fill in the gaps, no column relations, no true / false sentences. There are exercises with this kind of questions along the course, but they are presented as exercises, most of them to be solved together, not as exams. The evaluation proposal includes two elements: integrating interviews and reading and writing tasks. In every course, you’ll have at least two chances to evaluate your students: in Unit 5 and in Unit 10. The purpose of both Units is, precisely, to allow your students, to integrate what they have been learning in class. It is important that prior to evaluation (in particular the interview) you model with them, in the classroom, what the evaluation is going to be like. Remember that the best evaluation is the one that allows growing, not the one anybody passes.
Receive our best regards,
The authors
