Collins Cobuild English Course 3. [antikvár]

The Collins COBUILD English Course is a new departure in English language teaching materials. It is a lively and varied course, using plenty of natural English examples. And it is founded on the very latest evidence of English structure from the COBUILD files.The authors set themselves a very demanding task. A good course is a remarkable balancing act, and also a miracle of compression. Course materials today attain very high standards of presentation, variety of activity and stimulation to learning. As this final Level goes to press, I am happy to note that the liveliness has been sustained, the range of activity steadily increased and the texts cover a host of interesting and useful topics.The COBUILD research project has built up a mass of information from the careful examination of many millions of words, and it offers a new style and balance to a syllabus. Because of lack of evidence in the past, important usages have been missed, some trivial and misleading material has been prominently taught, sequencing has been fairly arbitrary and there has been a lack of respect for the natural patterns of the language. Now it is possible, with a little trouble, to offer the learner plenty of texts in quite natural English, and this Course opens up new experiences in that area.The ordering of the Course follows a new and carefully designed methodology which has been developed by the authors. The earlier Levels of the COBUILD Course introduced spontaneous conversation to methodical English teaching, which has been welcomed by teachers and students alike. Level 3 maintains this feature, and includes recorded interviews and monologue, where native speakers talk about their life and work.The learner is presented with tasks which expect a subtle and sensitive response to ordinary English. An increased attention to the written word and exam-related material prepares students for further study. Patterns of text organisation are featured, and the exercise of personal judgement is stressed; understanding of the attitudes of the writers and speakers is encouraged. The acquisition of reference skills is continued, and an interesting innovation is the selection from the Collins COBUILD Essential English Dictionary at the end of the book, which is systematically worked in to the unit material, to give the learner more independence.The most precious resource in language teaching is classroom time. Hence it is very important that the choice of what is taught is made very carefully. Using the evidence available from COBUILD, this Course has been able to identify the most useful words and patterns, and give the learner an excellent grounding in the English of today.Professor John Sinclair