Discussions that Work: Task-centred Fluency Practice

Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers

by Penny Ur

How can you make a discussion really work? This text provides guidelines on the organization of successful task-centered activities, along with 50 practical examples that have proven effective in classroom use.

Genres: Teaching, Nonfiction

130 pages, Paperback

First published January 30, 1981

Reviews

[Katerina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Когда мои студенты, будущие учителя, спрашивают, что почитать для профессионального развития, всегда советую эту книжку. Oldie but goldie про то, что, оказывается, иностранному языку можно учить методом отличным от "читаем - переводим".

[Earl Grey Tea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short and sweet book reinforces a lot of what I learned in my CELTA classes a few years back when it comes to learning English in the classroom. Instead of the drilling and extremely structured dialogues that used to be the norm in ESL and EFL education, Penny Ur gives a brief overview using speaking activities that are more open and are akin to using English in real world situations.

Even though much of this was a review, I did pick up a few tips on giving instructions that are clear to the students before you start the class.

Also, there was a nice list of activities to do that, explanations on how to execute them in class and how to create and/or modify activities for your own classroom. I read a lot of great ideas and thinking about how to implement them into my classes.

[Wsclai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book by Penny Ur for the Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers. If you have read the different titles by Ur, you may find some repetitions in her ideas and activities suggested. But overall, it is a handy resource book for teachers, with pictures and slips for activities that you can photocopy for immediate use.

[Sandy Millin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is full of great activities and practical tips. Every activity has lots of prompts already, minimising the planning time they'll require, and there are suggestions for variations too. I'll definitely be referring to it again in the future.

[De Bartosz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although some of the ideas are clearly outdated, it provides a number of useful tasks helping, especially inexperienced teachers, how to approach discussions in more advanced groups.

[John Bocskay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this is a useful little book to get an EFL teacher up and running with task-based language teaching. A bit light on theory, but just enough to ground the new teacher in the rationales for the subsequent lessons, and still holds up fairly well in light of 30-odd years of subsequent language acquisition research. Lots of good lesson ideas which are easily adaptable. I would recommend this for anyone teaching a loosely-structured, intermediate/advanced EFL/ESL course as a quick source of practical advice and ready-to-go activities that have a firm grounding in theory.

[Adeselna · Rating 3 out of 5]

It helped me with my master thesis, but I would love to have more theoretical background and more diversed activities. These activities are for common themes, I would have loved something outside the box.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great guide for oral-based language classes. It gives many concrete ideas for how to create situations in the classroom that encourage target language use.

[Roberta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, very useful book with well-explained activities that make classroom conversation better and more engaging.

[Arnold Brand · Rating 5 out of 5]

bad