LISTENING SKILLS

REAL LIVES, REAL LISTENING series

YOUNG ADULT/ADULT

Author: SHEILA THORN
Levels: Elementary, Intermediate & Advanced

A new series of ready-made, unscripted and authentic listening materials, featuring native and non-native speakers. Adding a crucial - and often overlooked - aspect of listening classes, these materials train, rather than just test, the students in listening. They boost students’ confidence in their listening skills by exposing them to authentic texts, and introduce the learner to the grammatical structures and lexis which are used most frequently in spoken English.

The materials also help students deal with those aspects of informal spoken English which they find so challenging (e.g. assimilation, elision, linking and colloquial expressions). Each topic in the series is at three levels (Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced) and each book includes a free CD with five interviews (different interviews at every level), each followed by detailed comprehension and language practice exercises which can be used in the classroom or for self-study. The series reflects the latest academic theories on the importance of authentic listening practice in language acquisition. The series also shows our new awareness of the huge differences between spoken and written English highlighted by recent research on spoken English corpora.

Created by Sheila Thorn of The Listening Business, the series features over 100 native and near-fluent non-native English speakers from all the main regions of Britain, as well as Australia, Canada, the USA, South Africa, Africa, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Sweden and Turkey. 

The student’s books each come with a CD, transcripts and helpful glossaries, and the Teacher’s Notes and Answer Keys are free online (see below) containing classroom support, answers and background notes.

 

 

 

A Place I Know Well

A Typical Day

My Family

 

ELEMENTARY

FREE SAMPLE DOWNLOADS
Unit 1 (3.4mb pdf)
Unit 1 Audio files (13.9mb)

 

INTERMEDIATE

FREE SAMPLE DOWNLOADS
Unit 1 (968kb pdf)
Unit 1 Audio files (10.6mb)

 

ADVANCED

A Place I Know Well
Elementary Student's book & CD Contents (36k pdf) Teacher Notes (50k pdf) Answer Key (36k pdf)	978-1-907584-39-8	Price: £14.95 Add to basket
Intermediate Student's book & CD Contents (52k pdf) Teacher Notes (620k pdf) Answer Key (176k pdf)	978-1-907584-40-4	Price: £14.95 Add to basket
Advanced Student's book & CD Available: March 2012	978-1-907584-41-1	Price: £14.95 Add to basket
A Typical Day
Elementary Student's book & CD Contents (64k pdf) Teacher Notes (792k pdf) Answer Key (312k pdf)	978-1-907584-42-8	Price: £14.95 Add to basket
Intermediate Student's book & CD Contents (52k pdf) Teacher Notes (688k pdf) Answer Key (376k pdf)	978-1-907584-43-5	Price: £14.95 Add to basket
Advanced Student's book & CD Available: March 2012	978-1-907584-44-2	Price: £14.95 Add to basket
My Family
Elementary Student's book & CD Contents (60k pdf) Teacher Notes (728k pdf) Answer Key (308k pdf)	978-1-907584-48-0	Price: £14.95 Add to basket
Intermediate Student's book & CD Contents (52k pdf) Teacher Notes (604k pdf) Answer Key (308k pdf)	978-1-907584-49-7	Price: £14.95 Add to basket
Advanced Student's book & CD Available: March 2012	978-1-907584-50-3	Price: £14.95 Add to basket

Read Sheila Thorn’s article about using authentic spoken English in the classroom:

Download article here (884k)

Download The Listening Business leaflet (236k)

TEACHER RESOURCES

COPYKIT ENGLISH SERIES: Picture Fun Writing

PRIMARY

Author: JANE MYLES & ANNIE HUGHES
Level: Beginner

A photocopiable resource book with illustrated vocabulary on the left-hand pages, from which the pupil selects words to complete writing activities on the right-hand pages. All the exercises are meaningful and purposeful, so the pupil is choosing, using and learning everyday words which are relevant in their own world. There are 20 lessons with topics such as school, home, hobbies, sports, pets, clothes, holidays etc.

Book: 978-1-907584-06-0

Price: £20.00 Add to basket

Download sample page (232k)

COPYKIT ENGLISH: English through Football

PRIMARY/SECONDARY

Author: SUSAN THOMAS & SARAH JOHNSON
Illustrator: HEATHER CLARKE
Level: All levels

Using fantastic cartoon illustrations, this photocopiable resource book provides generic language and practice through the motivating theme of football, with wonderful activities for groups and pair-work. Football is a universally popular topic (more and more for girls as well as boys!) and works all year round in any syllabus. Key topics, therefore, such as food, clothes, people, body, weather, travel, and language items such as verbs, prepositions and adjectives are all hidden behind a football theme, with lots of fun for young learners and teens. And if you want to teach students basic football words and phrases, the book does this, too!

Free downloadable samples:

Download Contents page (132k)

Download Introduction (244k)

Download Unit 6 – Weather (360k)

Download Unit 24 – A Football Player's Day (584k)

Book:	978-1-907584-01-5	Price: £20.00 Add to basket
Poster:	978-1-907584-57-2	Price: £5.00 Add to basket

COPYKIT ENGLISH: Minibooks for Young Learners

PRIMARY

Author: JANE MYLES
Level: Beginner

A photocopiable resource book of texts, puzzles and activities to learn and practise everyday words and phrases. For each pupil, the teacher photocopies 2 double-sided A4 pages, exactly as they are shown in the carefully-arranged handouts. The pupils easily fold and cut the pages to make their own 16-page ‘mini’ books on everyday topics such as school, family, shopping, the body, etc. The resource book makes learning vocabulary memorable, motivating and relevant. Includes answer section and full notes for the teacher for further activities, projects, adaptation and language exploitation.

Book: 978-1-907584-02-2

Price: £20.00 Add to basket

Download sample Minibook (192k)

Download sample teacher notes (136k)

COPYKIT ENGLISH: The Week Before Christmas

PRIMARY
Author: HILARY McCOLL
Level: Elementary

This charming photocopiable book with audio/resource CD is a unique resource for teachers who wish to use storytelling with young learners. Based around a simple Christmas story on PowerPoint and using multi-sensory tasks, this book provides lots of fun teaching ideas. It includes worksheets, pictures, sound files and craft activities to teach and practise everyday words and expressions around this seasonal topic. In the story it’s the week before Christmas, and Santa and Rudolf need snow, but the weather is terrible! What are they going to do? The language covered is weather, dates, months, days of the week, present simple/present continuous.

Book: 978-1-907584-38-1 (includes free CD)

Price: £25.00 Add to basket

Available: 2012

LANGUAGE GAMES

MINI FLASHCARDS LANGUAGE GAMES: Card Packs

PRIMARY/SECONDARY

Author: SUSAN THOMAS with ANNIE HUGHES
Illustrator: HEATHER CLARKE
ELT advisor: ANNIE HUGHES
Level: all levels

Sixteen packs of 40 full colour picture-word cards with games and suggested activities, for learners to use in class in pairs or group work. With guidance from the teacher, learners play with the cards to learn or revise language in an enjoyable and memorable way. The teacher’s book, COPYKIT ENGLISH: MINI FLASHCARDS LANGUAGE GAMES provides lots of ideas and suggestions for a wide variety of activities.

• Fun and motivating for teachers and learners
• Perfect for multi-sensory approaches to teaching
• Language-focused
• Great for independent or team learning
• Flexible (age of learner, language level or focus, activity length)
• Language and numbers dice also available

Download Mini Flashcards leaflet (304k)

Adjectives	978-1-907584-07-7	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
All About Me	978-1-907584-08-4	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
At Home	978-1-907584-09-1	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
At School	978-1-907584-10-7	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Body and Health	978-1-907584-11-4	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Clothes	978-1-907584-12-1	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Feelings	978-1-907584-13-8	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Food and Drink	978-1-907584-14-5	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Happy Holidays	978-1-907584-15-2	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Leisure	978-1-907584-16-9	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
People and Jobs	978-1-907584-17-6	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Prepositions & Directions	978-1-907584-18-3	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Round the Town	978-1-907584-19-0	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Travel	978-1-907584-20-6	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Verbs	978-1-907584-21-3	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Weather & Calendar	978-1-907584-22-0	Price: £3.95 Add to basket

DICE (pack of 6 same dice) - Colours	978-1-907584-23-7	Price: £5.95 Add to basket
DICE (pack of 6 same dice) - Mood	978-1-907584-25-1	Price: £5.95 Add to basket
DICE (pack of 6 same dice) - numbers 0-9	978-1-907584-24-4	Price: £5.95 Add to basket
DICE (pack of 6 same dice) - numbers 1-20	978-1-907584-26-8	Price: £5.95 Add to basket
DICE (pack of 6 same dice) - numbers 1-6	978-1-907584-27-5	Price: £5.95 Add to basket
DICE (pack of 6 same dice) - Prepositions	978-1-907584-28-2	Price: £5.95 Add to basket
DICE (pack of 6 same dice) - Pronouns	978-1-907584-29-9	Price: £5.95 Add to basket
DICE (pack of 6 same dice) - Questions	978-1-907584-30-5	Price: £5.95 Add to basket
DICE (pack of 6 same dice) - Tenses	978-1-907584-31-2	Price: £5.95 Add to basket
DICE (pack of 9 different dice)	978-1-907584-32-9	Price: £7.95 Add to basket
Mini Flashcards Language Games TEACHER’S BOOK	978-1-907584-03-9	Price: £20.00 Add to basket

 

Spinner versions of the dice now available!

MINI FLASHCARDS LANGUAGE GAMES: SPINNERS
PACK A: Colours, Mood, Questions, Pronouns, Prepositions, Tenses, Nos 0-9, Nos 1-6, Nos 1-20 pack of 9 (1 set of each)	978-1-907584-68-8	Price: £5.95 Add to basket
PACK B: Colours, Mood, Questions, Pronouns, Prepositions, Tenses, Nos 0-9, Nos 1-6, Nos 1-20 pack of 54 (6 sets of each)	978-1-907584-88-6	Price: £29.95 Add to basket

COPYKIT ENGLISH: MINI FLASHCARDS LANGUAGE GAMES: Teacher's Book

PRIMARY/SECONDARY/ADULT

Author: SUSAN THOMAS with ANNIE HUGHES
Illustrator: HEATHER CLARKE advisor ANNIE HUGHES
Level: all levels

Download a free sample unit of 40 Mini Flashcards pictures & teacher’s notes (1.3mb)

This resource book provides black and white photocopiable versions of all 604 picture-card prompts for the vocabulary in the 16 card packs from the Mini Flashcards Language Games series. It can be used on its own or as a comprehensive guide to using the Mini Flashcards, providing lots of ideas and suggestions for a wide variety of multi-sensory communication and language games for all ages and all levels. You can use the book to make more Mini Flashcards, or large flashcards or handouts containing groups of pictures. There are also ideas for combining dice or spinners which show language, mood (like, dislike etc), tenses, colours and numbers. (See also Mini Flashcards Language Games).

Book: 978-1-907584-03-9

Price: £20.00 Add to basket

COPYKIT ENGLISH: MINI FLASHCARDS LANGUAGE GAMES: Vital Verbs Teacher's Book

This photocopiable resource book provides black and white versions of all 108 verb pictures in the 3 packs of ‘Vital Verbs’ Mini Flashcards (see Mini Flashcards Language Games). The book includes word lists and lots of language practice games and activities, for all levels and ages. It can be used on its own or as a comprehensive guide to using the ‘Vital Verbs’ Mini Flashcards.

Book:	978-1-907584-04-6	Price: £15.00 Add to basket
Poster:	978-1-907584-58-9	Price: £5.00 Add to basket

 

 

Vital Verbs card packs

3 packs of 36 full colour picture-word cards with games and suggested activities, for learners to use in class in pairs or groupwork. A great resource for fun speaking practice and working with tenses.

 

Card Pack A:	978-1-907584-33-6	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Card Pack B:	978-1-907584-34-3	Price: £3.95 Add to basket
Card Pack C:	978-1-907584-35-0	Price: £3.95 Add to basket

 

Vital Verbs Kit

Teacher’s Book + 3 packs of cards – 108 verbs, large poster showing 40 verbs + Questions dice, Pronouns Dice and Tenses dice.

Book: 978-1-907584-36-7

Price: £30.00 Add to basket

 

 

 

LANGUAGE PRACTICE

PHRASAL VERBS IN CONTEXT

ADULT/YOUNG ADULT

Author: PETER DAINTY
Level: Intermediate +

A fun, cartoon-based story to help students learn and practise phrasal verbs. This unique title places over 300 common phrasal verbs in a natural context, with text and dialogues which are real and genuine rather than formulaic and strained. There are plenty of language practice exercises, plus a cross- referenced index and answer key at the back of the book. The CD has a fun and lively reading of all the text in the story, and the material can even be adapted by a class as a play or radio drama. Teachers and students will love using it, and it can be used in the classroom or for self-study. The Teacher’s Notes are available free online.

Download a free sample chapter (1.1mb)

Download Teacher's Notes (108k)

Listen to accompanying audio file

Download accompanying audio file (2.7mb)

Student’s Book + free CD: 978-1-907584-00-8

Price: £14.95 Add to basket

Download Phrasal Verbs in Context leaflet (552k)

BOOKS FOR TEACHERS

STORY AS VEHICLE (New Edition)

Revised Edition
Author: EDIE GARVIE
Revised by: ANNIE HUGHES

Aimed at primary teachers of English as a foreign language, this classic book deals with story as an approach or methodology within the young learners’ English language teaching classroom. The book is in four parts: Parts 1 and 2 deal with the issues of language learning and teaching which affect practice; Part 3 focuses on the practicalities of the classroom; and Part 4 looks at the implications for trainers and those in teachers’ support situations. ‘Story’ is interpreted in its widest sense in the book, and a link is drawn between the story of life and the language that goes with it. It is suggested that the motivated teacher – working from a story bank rich in all manner of tales, variety of styles of story, and activities linked to these stories – can produce the kind of learning environment which stimulates children, carries them forward and scaffolds their language learning.

Book: 978-1-907584-56-5

Price: £14.95 Add to basket

Available: 2012

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING ESSENTIALS series

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING ESSENTIALS is a series of practical guides to specific areas of English Language Teaching. Their aim is to provide teachers of all backgrounds and levels of experience the essentials to understand a particular aspect of ELT, and to implement tried-and-tested tasks and thinking from experts in the field.

 

TEACHING TECHNIQUES FOR COMMUNICATIVE ENGLISH

Author: JANE REVELL

This book is full of practical ideas. It suggests techniques to bridge the gap between the language of the classroom and the world outside. The lively activities give learners a chance to experiment creatively with newly-acquired language so they can communicate meaningfully in real life situations. The book works in a very structured way, moving from easier to more challenging exercises – for both learners and teachers. It explains not just how to use the activities in the classroom, but also why it's important to use them. It has been warmly welcomed by practising teachers and teacher trainees alike.

Book: 978-1-907584-55-8

Price: £12.95 Add to basket

 

HOW TO USE GAMES IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Revised Edition
Author: SHELAGH RIXON

This is a practical handbook of games which has strong roots in the principles of teaching and learning languages. In other words there is a ‘theory and why it works’ strand running alongside the descriptions of the games themselves. The games included may be developed and used to address different aspects of language learning, going all the way from fun ways of ‘fixing’ vocabulary items, to challenges which encourage learners to experiment with the language and develop strategies of communication. Many of the games are original but some old favourites are also described as illustrations of principles, and of the many different interaction patterns that can be set up through games. These go from teacher-led whole class team games with a focus on form, to games that can be played by small groups independently in order to develop communication skills. Each game has a description box which gives the rules and possible variants, the requirements for materials, the numbers of players, timing and, last but not least, the language areas that it was designed to cover. There is a strong emphasis on finding games to fulfill syllabus objectives rather than using them only as entertainment or time-fillers.

Book: 978-1-907584-54-1

Price: £12.95 Add to basket

Available: 2012

 

DEVELOPING LISTENING SKILLS

Revised Edition
Author: SHELAGH RIXON

An ideal introductory text for teachers in the area of ‘listening in order to become a better listener’ rather than ‘listening to imitate and speak’. Different theories of the listening process are discussed, and their implications for supporting learners are illustrated by practical activities and lesson outlines. Particular attention is paid to the phonology of English and the special challenges it may offer to listeners from some language backgrounds. Listening-based activities for each stage of a lesson are described and discussed, from schema-setting prediction activities before a listening text is tackled, through while-listening information-gathering activities, to after-listening reflection and ‘noticing’ activities.

Book: 978-1-907584-53-4

Price: £12.95 Add to basket

Available: 2012

 

INTRODUCING ENGLISH TO YOUNG CHILDREN:
Spoken Language

Author: OPAL DUNN

Easy to read and full of practical information, this book discusses how very young and young children begin to acquire English, suggesting how teachers and parents can ‘tune into’ young children’s developmental needs and support them. The book introduces lesson plans and a wide selection of useful oral activities for 3- to 8-year olds, tips for classroom management, as well as projects, games, and simple picture books that can be used from the first lessons. A portion of the author’s royalties will be donated to Room to Read a global organisation dedicated to promoting and enabling education through programmes focused on literacy and gender equality in education. This book has been fully revised by the author, based on her many years of teaching children up to 8 years old, training teachers, authoring picture-books for nursery and young primary children, as well as writing information books and articles for parents.

Book: 978-1-907584-51-0

Price: £12.95 Add to basket

Available: March 2012

 

INTRODUCING ENGLISH TO YOUNG CHILDREN:
Reading and Writing

Author: OPAL DUNN

Once children have an oral foundation, are older and more mature, they are ready to find out how English is encoded. This book introduces reading and creative writing skills (including spelling) in meaningful projects. Handwriting  is introduced for children who write using a different script. Oral activities are followed up to match young children’s development of reading and writing skills in English. This book has been fully revised by the author, based on her many years of teaching children up to 8 years old, training teachers, authoring picture-books for nursery and young primary children, as well as writing information books and articles for parents

Book: 978-1-907584-52-7

Price: £12.95 Add to basket

Available: Autumn 2012