Titles in The English Course

This is a brief summary of the titles currently available in The English Course series. For detailed information, click on a book cover to go to that title's dedicated page.

Discussion Book 1

Discussion Book 1 is a lower intermediate level courses intended for college, university and senior high school students, designed to promote critical thinking and extensive discussion about a variety of interesting and important issues. Each unit includes two sets of discussion questions, a conversation audio clip, reading and vocabulary activities and an end of unit task. Each unit is designed to take three 90-minute classroom periods. The classroom work is reinforced with a writing exercise and an online study centre with additional exercises and tests. Though primarily designed as a discussion course, the amount of material and flexibility in the design of each unit allows the book to also be taught with the focus as a listening and note-taking course, a four skills course, or as a task-based language course.

Discussion Book 2

Discussion Book 2 is a lower intermediate level course intended for college and university students, designed to promote critical thinking and extensive discussion about a variety of interesting and important issues. Each unit includes two sets of discussion questions, a lecture or conversation audio clip, reading and vocabulary activities and an end of unit task. Each unit is designed to take three 90-minute classroom periods. The classroom work is reinforced with a writing exercise and an online study centre with additional exercises and tests. Though primarily designed as a discussion course, the amount of material and flexibility in the design of each unit allows the book to also be taught with the focus as a listening and note-taking course, a four skills course, or as a task-based language course.

Presentation Book 1

Presentation Book 1 is a lower intermediate (CEFR B1/B2) level (and upwards) course, intended for college and university students. Presentation Book 1 is designed primarily to teach learners to analyse, create, present and evaluate presentations in English, but would be useful for giving presentations in other languages as well. Students are asked to use all four skills to complete a variety of tasks and in various ways, including pair and group discussion work, visual and listening comprehension, critical thinking, writing, brainstorming, planning, editing, and presentation. There are 14 units in all, and the complete course is designed to fit into a standard university year of class sessions. The first seven units introduce presentations and cover the three messages (the physical message, story message and visual message). The second set of seven units covers various kinds of presentation in detail, as well as looking at effective research methods and analysis and evaluation of presentations.

Speaking Starter

Speaking Starter is an integrated English language course for false beginners. Speaking Starter is principally intended for young adult learners at college or university level. The aim of the course is to balance the communicative-based approach to language learning with cutting-edge technology, for both classroom use and student self-access study. The units in the textbook are designed to cover appropriate and necessary vocabulary and structures for this level. Each unit in the course includes the following: 2 video clips for listening comprehension, the demonstration of appropriate conversational settings and language use; numerous student speaking and listening opportunities; and 7 online revision/practice exercises on the student self-access web site, plus additional audio material for students to use.

Speaking Book 1

Speaking Book 1 is principally intended for young adult learners at college or university level. The aim of the course is to balance the communicative-based approach to language learning with cutting-edge technology, for both classroom use and student self-access study. The units in the textbook cover a variety of basic and useful functions. Each unit in the course includes the following: 4 video clips for listening comprehension, the demonstration of appropriate conversational settings and language use; 19 student speaking and listening opportunities; and 11 online revision/practice exercises on the student self-access web site, plus additional audio material for students to use.

Writing Book 1

Writing Book 1 is principally intended for young adult learners at college or university level. The aim of the course is to balance extensive guided writing practise, through numerous textbook exercises, with cutting-edge technology for both classroom use and student self-access study. The units in the textbook cover a variety of writing genres and are designed to teach writing skills in a logical order, starting with basic sentence structures and building up to essay writing. Each unit in the course includes the following: examples and several textbook exercises; two multimedia-based revision quizzes and at least seven online revision/practice exercises on the student self-access web site, plus audio/video material for students to use.

Introductory video for Speaking Starter, Speaking Book 1 and Writing Book 1

This video was produced in 2014, before the release of Discussion Book 1, DIscussion Book 2 and Writing Book 1 (Second Edition), which is why they are not mentioned in this video. To find out about Discussion Book 1 and Discussion Book 2, please take a look at the second video (below).

 

Introductory video for Discussion Book 1 and Discussion Book 2

This video was produced in 2016, before Discussion Book 1 was finished. As such there were a few subsequent changes to Discussion Book 1 as follows: A few of the topics that can be seen on the book cover were changed. Please refer to the Discussion Book 1 pages for an accurate listing. Secondly, the level is referred to as elementary, but the correct level is lower intermediate. Discussion Book 1 is aimed at a slightly lower level than Discussion Book 2.