A New Concept in English Coursebooks - Part One

The  Puumaja and its resident ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher Tim Flowers just had to publish this synopsis which dropped on our desk some time ago. It covers a new ESL  coursebook which we think puts all the others (Deadway, International Depress, Cutting Wrists etc) to shame..The synopsis is quite long so'll be published in parts..



 

ULTIMATE ENGLISH from University Press Ltd.

Ultimate English is a fresh, dynamic and revolutionary new concept in Actualized Realistic Stipendiary English (ARSE) learning. It is built around fundamental core needs of the student’s interactional linguistic and intuitive framework and aims to synergise his or her deductive assimilation without detracting from essential lexical and cognitive necessities.

Each unit is divided into SIX sections as follows.

INTRODUCTION

Our units compete mercilessly with one another in trying to find the dullest, most soul-destroying introductory topic imaginable, thus rendering any potential chance of discussion still-born. Unit-by-unit you will be enthralled by such hot issues as ‘stones and where they come from’, ‘the first time I went to a furniture shop’, and ‘what is it like to grow up in Llanelli?’ Debate will be provoked from the outset with such questions as : ‘Do you have cups in your country? If so, how do you use them?’, ‘how old are the people in these pictures and how old are you?’, and ‘what is the worst personal health issue you have had to visit the doctor with and how was it treated?’

LISTENING

Our team has assembled a group of ‘resting’ actors, all of them card-carrying equity members. We salute their valiant efforts to inject some sort of meter into scripts which would make public service information narrators run off a pier. Don’t worry though, we present a range of very, very convincing accents from around the Anglophone world, rather than using, say a British actor to ‘go american’ for the odd unit or two. Because we’d never do that.

DISCUSSION CORNER

Sample discussion lead-in from Unit 2, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’:

What do you know about these world famous people?

-Britney Spears

-Vladimir Putin

-Madonna

-Dimitri Medvedev

-Christina Agueleira

-Yuri Andropov

-the one from the Pussycat Dolls who goes out with Lewis Hamilton.

-Felix Dzerzhinsky

- Ricky Martin

- Aleksei Leonov

- Glen Medeiros

-Lev Yashin

- Leona Lewis

-Viktor Korchnoi

Which of them can you identify with the most?

 
...to be continued.