INTRODUCTION

Welcome to A Piece of Cake – a complete English course which develops learners’ English speaking skills and strategies from 3rd grade through to the school leaving examination in 9th grade.

In A Piece of Cake, IT is an integral element in the teaching and learning process. If you have the book, you also have access to the A Piece of Cake Website, giving both teachers and learners direct use of tailor-made interactive whiteboard flipcharts, sound and copy sheets.

A Piece of Cake 3 consists of: • Textbook including Student’s Web Resources • Workbook • Teacher’s Web Resources including printed Teacher’s Guide

Learners are introduced to a basic beginner vocabulary and communicative phrases and are given opportunities to practise and develop their skills in using this language. There is an emphasis on creative and activating forms of learning, including the use of songs, rhymes and games.

The main focus is on oral communication within a framework that recognises the interdependence of the five language skills that are specified in the national curriculum for English: speaking, oral interaction, listening, reading and writing.

Pedagogical principles

A Piece of Cake 3:

1 Makes IT an integral element in the teaching and learning process

1 Sets clear aims

1 Uses rhymes, songs and games to support the learners’ language development

1 Builds up a basic vocabulary within everyday topics, enabling learners to begin communicating about themselves and subjects which interest them

1 Motivates learners to use the language from the very start

1 Encourages the use of English as a classroom language

1 Uses Cooperative Learning structures and other interactive oral activities to give maximum talking time for each learner

1 Focuses on speaking and listening, but also introduces simple reading and writing activities

1 Develops learners’ communication and learning strategies

1 Ensures differentiation through open communication activities and small projects

1 Introduces English as a language that is fun to learn and use

ENJOY!

Presentation of the elements

TEXTBOOk The Textbook introduces all vocabulary within relevant everyday themes such as clothes, friends, school and spare time activities. Each chapter contains songs, rhymes, dialogues and small communicative activities that practise the new language. There are some small interactive projects that revise the language that has been introduced and practised in the previous chapters. There are also a number of short stories, which are mostly intended for entertainment, and which make use of already introduced language and can, for example, be dramatised.

Most chapters in the Textbook include a frieze of illustrated words. The frieze provides a key to the essential vocabulary of the chapter. The words can be used as an introduction to the theme concerned, and they are important as support for the learners when they use the language actively. For example, all the illustrated words are printable from the A Piece of Cake website and can be made into cards for a variety of vocabulary games. See the unit-to-unit guidelines for specific suggestions.

At the back of the Textbook (pages 38-39), there is a table which shows the learners what they have the opportunity to learn within each theme area. In the page-to-page teaching notes (page 32 in this book), each theme is introduced with a presentation of the language covered by the theme.

Also at the back of the Textbook (page 40), there is a step-by-step description in Danish of the Cooperative Learning structures that are used in the Textbook.

The A Piece of Cake Website gives both teacher and learners easy access to the Textbook’s sound files. Touch-sensitive areas provide the opportunity to focus listening and, for example, pronunciation practice on text sections or individual illustrated words if learners need to be reminded of their pronunciation. Tailor-made interactive whiteboard flipcharts make it possible for the teacher to work separately with the many Textbook illustrations, e.g. when introducing new vocabulary areas, the Zak stories and so on. Furthermore, the learners have direct PC and interactive whiteboard access to activities.

wORkBOOk The Workbook supports the work in the Textbook through structured listening and speaking activities and through vocabulary practice activities and games that help the learners to remember words and put them into meaningful personal contexts.

The emphasis is on authentic communication and game-like activities that will motivate the learners to take active part in the learning process. For example, there are small dialogue and interview activities, mostly entirely spoken but sometimes also involving a very limited degree of writing. On the games front, there are, for instance, crosswords, word grids, word snakes, anagrams, bingo, join-the-dots, oddman-out and a board game at the end of the Workbook.

The last few pages of the Workbook focus on learners’ self-evaluation. The first two evaluation pages ask learners to think about which words they have learned from the various themes throughout the book. Here, learners have the opportunity to evaluate themselves three times during the school year. The next double page requires them to reflect on which questions they are able to ask and answer in connection with the book’s themes.

These self-evaluation pages are very simple. Their intention is to begin a process in 3rd-grade learners of becoming gradually more aware of their own learning processes. They will, of course, be supplemented by other evaluation activities implemented by the teacher.

The Workbook also offers opportunities for use with the interactive whiteboard, for example for introducing activities and checking answers to exercises. Moreover, the learners can listen to texts for understanding and pronunciation purposes both in class and on their own PCs.

a PIECE OF CakE wEB REsOURCEs Give you and your learners direct access to a wide range of web resources to compliment and supplement every lesson. • Teacher’s Web Resources give the teacher access to guided interactive whiteboard activities, to all the sound files on mp3 and to printable copy sheets. In addition, the printed Teacher’s Guide explains the pedagogical principles behind the material and makes page-by-page suggestions for planning, teaching and evaluating the material in the Textbook and Workbook. There are also ideas for extra games and

activities, and suggestions as to how IT can be exploited to supplement the material. • Student’s Web Resources give the learners access to all the sound files in mp3, easy to download, and to digital activities.

All the texts in the Textbook and the listening exercises in the Workbook are recorded by native speakers.

We hope you enjoy working with A Piece of Cake 3.

Cooperative Learning

As mentioned above, A Piece of Cake 3 makes use of Cooperative Learning in order to activate the learners in the construction of their own receptive and productive knowledge of the English language. Cooperative Learning approaches learning as a social process. The method’s fundamental view of learning is that learners construct and develop their own knowledge of themselves and the surrounding world. They do this through dialogue with others and interdependence within a group. This social constructivist process enables learners to achieve learning that they would not normally be able to achieve alone.

This means implementing activities in the classroom that activate learners, are collaborative and ensure that learners take responsibility for their role in the outcome of the task in hand. Cooperative Learning does this through the use of sets of activities called “structures”. These function as a kind of scaffolding for learners’ work with the material that forms the content of their study.

One of the advantages of this approach in English teaching is that all learners are active at the same time. In other words, in contrast to more “traditional” approaches, the opportunity for active learner talking time is maximised, something that we know is important for learners’ ability to test and develop their internal language knowledge.

A Piece of Cake 3 does not use Cooperative Learning for all language work, but makes use of four structures: Mix-N-Match, Mix-Pair-Share, Quiz-Quiz-Trade and People Hunt. Flashcard Game is also recommended in the page-by-page teaching notes. A detailed description of these structures can be found on page 101, and a Danish version on page 40 of the Textbook.

Evaluation

A Piece of Cake 3 emphasises the use of informal, day-to-day evaluation. This is something that most teachers already do constantly, sometimes almost without being conscious of it. It normally involves using the observation of ordinary daily teaching activities to assess learners’ learning and to support the planning of future class work and individual learners’ development. See the page-by-page teaching notes for specific suggestions as to how this can be done.

In addition, A Piece of Cake 3 encourages the development of learners’ own self-evaluation. This is achieved through the Workbook. Here, learners both personalise the learned language and thereby become increasingly aware of its uses, and also directly reflect on how much of the language (e.g. how many words) they think they have learned. Ideas for how and when to evaluate can be found in the page-by-page teaching notes.

We also suggest the use of learners’ and/or a class portfolio as a way of recording work done and evaluating progress. See page 16.

Use of IT

A Piece of Cake website A Piece of Cake 3 offers the opportunity for a varied use of IT, depending on the technology that is available at the individual school. As mentioned above there are web resources that can be used with the whole class together and other web resources, where learners can listen individually and work on their own PCs.

Although the interactive whiteboard gives a wide range of possibilities for varied work patterns and use of online facilities, we have used the word “board” to mean either a traditional black/white board or a digital board.

Here are a few examples of how an interactive whiteboard can be used in connection with A Piece of Cake 3:

1 The IWB flipcharts make it possible to show the illustrations without the text. The teacher might make use of this when introducing a chapter in order to find out how much vocabulary learners already know in relation to the theme concerned.

1 The IWB flipcharts and digital pages include touch-sensitive areas/ hotspots. This allows the teacher or learners to listen (perhaps several times) to sections of text or particular words in the picture friezes that they want to focus on. This could be done for pronunciation purposes or to practise understanding the spoken language.

Even if you have access to a digital board, we still advocate use of “paper and pen” classroom posters for collecting new words and ideas. Posters which hang on the walls for a period are easy to refer to, and provide peripheral learning as learners “see” them the whole time.

Mobile phones Even in schools with limited technological equipment, most learners have access to a very useful electronic tool: their mobile phones. Learners can use their mobiles to take photographs and record short sequences of film or sound which can constructively be used to support work on the topics that A Piece of Cake 3 introduces. For instance, photographs of friends, family and spare-time activities can form the visual element of a presentation in Photo Story 3 for Windows.

Notebooks

Learners will need an English notebook in which they can write new words and phrases and other information. These can be ordinary exercise books or be part of a loose-leaf ring file (see portfolio below).

Encourage learners to make a nice cover for their notebook, and to illustrate and keep it neatly. Help learners to organise their notebook, for example by encouraging them to collect words and phrases in topic pages which correspond to the material in their text and Workbooks.

See ideas for organising and using chosen vocabulary in the page-bypage teaching notes below. Ideas for making and playing word games can be found on page 105.

Portfolios

A portfolio gives learners and the class a record of work done and shows progression in learning. Having a record of your own work can help you to evaluate your own work and plan your learning process. Portfolios can be used to show the learner’s work at parent-teacherlearner meetings, and when in discussion with the individual learner in order to plan further work together.

A learner’s portfolio can be in digital form or it can be a file of some kind (ring file, a magazine box or similar). Choose whatever seems most realistic and practical in your situation. It should be easily accessible, but the learners need not take it home, so size is not an issue.

The portfolio will typically contain the learner’s actual products (including material recorded/videoed in class), comments on his/her own work, and notes (see also notebooks, above). Group and class performances of songs, rhymes and dialogues are good additions to portfolios.

Learners can also collect relevant “English” things from the world around them for their portfolio. Postcards from holidays, photos, copies of CDs, advertisements and other items which help the learners to relate English to their daily lives, and which give them an insight into English-speaking culture will help to maintain learners’ motivation for learning and using the language. They will also provide “real” background for discussing with the teacher or classmates which items should remain in their portfolio. It is the learner himself/herself, with help from the teacher, and perhaps classmates or family, who chooses what is to be included in their portfolio, and who revises his/her portfolio from time to time so it includes only work he/she wishes to show others.

Get learners used to sticking a ”post-it” on each product in the portfolio with the date and a couple of words (which can be in Danish) as to why the item has been chosen.