Product Description

How can you make a discussion really work? What sort of activities produce genuine and enthusiastic exchanges of ideas? How can you prepare such exercises quickly and easily? These are some of the questions that Discussions that Work sets out to answer. The first part provides some general guidelines on the organisation of successful task-centred activities. The second part consists of some fifty practical examples which have been tried and found effective in the classroom. They range from fairly simple to complex and sophisticated, and can thus be used with a wide range of learners, from elementary to the most advanced, in both secondary and adult education.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #96203 in Books
• Published on: 1981-01-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Review
'Penny Ur writes lucidly and sensibly, emphasizing that in the classroom why you need to talk about something is more important than what you should talk about.' Donald Hawes, The Times Educational Supplement

' … has a wealth of practical ideas which can be used in the classroom tomorrow.' Wendy Scott, Practical English Teaching

Customer Reviews

Excellent conversation starter...
Offers good ideas for encouraging fluency within the EFL classroom. Having tried some of the activities with my extremely nervous students, I was surprised at how much they actually spoke. The activities offer the students a real reason to communicate in English, rather than the dull question and answer activities so often met in textbooks. The students really enjoy the practice and become so involved in the tasks that they forget to be paranoid about their pronunciation. The only criticism I have is that many of the samples could have been laid out on individual pages for ease of photocopying. All the same, an invaluable resource for any conversation-frustrated teacher!

Dated!
For teachers who have trained recently or have been in practice for some time, this book has very little to offer. There is nothing "wrong" with the content, but it offers reasoning that should be common knowledge these days (communication / discussion helps students learn and should be included as an important dynamic of the classroom environment), and activities that teachers shouldn't need a book to create! As a teacher, you should know issues which are within the ability and interest of your students to discuss - do it. I bought it thinking it would offer quick lessons to help my classes, but I was mistaken. There are loads of up-to-date materials and aids available online. This gives no quick lesson plans that you couldn't think of in a 5 minute break. If it's the theory you're interested in, it's covered far more comprehensively in a multitude of books and guides that have more current insights, if it's lesson plans, look elsewhere.