The Language Teacher Toolkit

Book excerpt: "Strongly recommend the book: a must-have" "Chapeau! Already on our trainee reading list." "Absolutely loving this! Inspirational, practical, so sensible and backed up by research. Well done, gentlemen, and thank you." The Language Teacher Toolkit is designed with both practising and trainee (pre-service) teachers in mind and uniquely bridges the gap between research and classroom practice. It is a comprehensive and clearly written handbook, particularly useful for teachers of modern foreign languages (world languages) who work in high schools (secondary education). Written by two highly-experienced teachers with an interest in research and theory, it offers a reflective approach along with many practical classroom activities which can immediately be applied in daily teaching. The book closes with sample lessons for French, German and Spanish. Chapters include: - methods - classroom oral techniques - teaching in the target language - developing spontaneous talk - teaching grammar and vocabulary - listening, reading and writing - subject knowledge - using song, drama and games - assessment - using pictures - teaching advanced level students - technology - behaviour and motivation - evaluating and writing resources - translation - lesson planning - example lesson plans The busy languages teacher can quickly find ideas for enhancing practice, while insightful consideration of research helps create a basis for personal development in the field. The authors are two internationally well-known bloggers in the field of language teaching and applied linguistics: Steve Smith is a former Head of Languages, taught languages for over 30 years, holds an MA in applied linguistics, writes the very popular resources site frenchteacher.net and the widely-read blog frenchteachernet.com Dr Gianfranco Conti has taught languages for over twenty years, holds a PhD in applied linguistics, is as award-winning blogger and resource writer for TES and runs the popular interactive website language-gym.com