Teacher Talk

[Bill]

Is Charles supposed to be a designer, as it says in the model dialog? He's holding up a jacket, so I guess he's either a designer or a sales clerk.

Meg is obviously a teacher, but the word "teacher" isn't in the list. I missed it the first time through, so I was amazed at the students' responses. Some were stopped dead in their tracks... others called Meg a writer

I just told them, "You know the word 'teacher,' don't you?"

(With the next group of students, I told them to add the word 'teacher' to the list... that first group consisted of my best and brightest, so... )

[Paul]

Hi Bill

Thanks for your comments about page 6. The answers are that generally speaking there aren't fixed answers. One of our aims in the first few pages of Natural Speaking is to make students aware that the book is not about 'getting the correct answer' but about exchanging ideas, making use of previous knowledge and seeing what new learning is needed in order to express the ideas they may want to express. And if you feel that Charles looks more like a sales clerk than a designer, we are more than happy for you to tell your students that so that they also feel encouraged to make the same kinds of observations and begin to interact with the textbook rather than be controlled by it.

You're right that 'teacher' is not in the list and you're also right in observing that this is one of the words that you can expect students to know already. Natural Speaking is a text that aims to activate students into seeing what use they can make of what they already know, and does not give every word or all the language and sentence patterns they will be using in a task.

With the weaker students (like your second group of students), you can either do what you did, give them the word in advance, or you can ask them to list all the names of occupations that they know on a separate piece of paper, as a warm-up activity, and then say that they can make use of those words in the specified activity, along with the words that are in the book.

Thanks for your thoughts, Bill!

Paul
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Paul Thompson
Co-author, Natural Speaking