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TEACHER’S NOTES 2008– 2009 THE FUN WAY TO LEARN ENGLISH LET’S START! has been designed to teach English to young learners through grammar games and up-todate articles on issues they can relate to such as pop music, cinema, the environment, health, sport and IT. The variety of language games and range of current news features make this magazine ideal for students to enjoy on their own or for you to use in class as a complementary resource to standard text books. LET’S START! 2008-2009 is aligned to levels A1 and A2 of the Council of Europe Common European Framework for language teaching (CEFR) and to KET (Cambridge exams). The magazine is for basic students of English, corresponding to levels A1 and A2 of the framework (reference levels A1, A2: basic; B1, B2: independent; C1, C2: fluent). The magazine reflects a view of language proficiency in terms of a language user’s overall communicative ability. Four main skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking are covered throughout. All four skills are multi-dimensional involving the interaction of the reader’s mental processing capacities with their language and content knowledge. Writing tasks vary in complexity from tasks requiring single word answers to a communicative task requiring up to 35 words of output. Listening, like reading, is a multidimensional skill, involving interaction between the listener and the external features of the text and task. Let’s Start! employs a range of text and task types to reflect the variety of situations a learner at this level is likely to encounter. As with writing, speaking involves multiple competencies including vocabulary and grammatical knowledge, phonological control, knowledge of discourse, and pragmatic awareness, which are particularly distinct from their equivalents in the written language.
CONTENT AND FOCUS Each issue of LET’S START! (six all together) is made up of a complete didactic unit so that by the end of the school year, students will have covered the basics for their level of English. The modular structure of the magazine takes into account the functional and organic nature of language
acquisition. Because each magazine provides you with ready-made, easy-to use and self-contained lessons, you can plan ahead and integrate the magazines into your school curriculum. 1) Each issue of the magazine is based around a didactic unit which includes: a news item and prereading activity on page 2, a cartoon on page 3, illustrated vocabulary and games on pages 4 and 5 and a related article on pages 6 and 7. A colourful poster students can pull out and pin up on pages 8 and 9 is followed by a fun cartoon on page 10 and a quirky chant on page 11. Content is ‘spiral’-like in its progression: this means that you can address the same issues again and again but in slightly different ways. The aim of this is to: ● ensure the magazines are theme-focused without being repetitive ● give students the chance to learn, remember and consolidate ● enable students to put into practice what they have learnt by reading current, youth-related issues. 2) News and culture from Britain and the Englishspeaking world are dealt with in the poster, the articles on pages 12 and 13 and an issue on page 16. Each page is also interactive so students can practise and think about what they have just learnt. 3) SELF-ASSESSMENT: the revision games on page 14 of LET’S START! give students the chance to revisit what they learnt from the magazine as well as put their memories to the test by encouraging selfassessment and continued learning.
WHAT’S NEW IN 2008 – 2009 ● The illustrated vocabulary on pages 4 and 5 includes nouns, verbs and adjectives; ● The Teacher’s Notes now include audio activities and authentic materials for extension activities; ● each issue allows students to take part in our competition Let’s have a laugh where they can send in a funny story, photo or drawing; ● November’s issue features a Christmas play the class can prepare; ● the May/June issue features a booklet of revision activities.
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