| Book Reviews |
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Sepember 2006
Multiple Intelligences in EFL by Herbert Puchta and Mario Rinvolucri Helbling Languages 2005 3-902504-25-0 This practical book offers teachers, teacher trainers and teacher trainees an overview of the latest research into human intelligence as well as 74 clear, fun and easy-to-follow classroom activities. The book opens with a thought-provoking introduction, which is made up of five sections. Section one introduces the theory and history of Multiple Intelligences (MI), the idea that intelligence can be split into three main strands, originally just logical mathematical, linguistic and spatial, but later expanded by Howard Gardner into seven: intrapersonal, interpersonal, logical mathematical, linguistic, musical, spatial, and kinaesthetic. Each intelligence is clearly presented in a mini classroom scenario. Section two proposes a number of criteria that would qualify a set of behaviours, skills and beliefs to be classified as a full-blown intelligence. Section three gives an example of how a teacher helped a visually-spatially intelligent girl cope with arithmetic by drawing her into her logical-mathematical intelligence via her spatial ability. It is suggested that we can do the same by involving other intelligence areas in our language lessons. The activities in the book are designed to activate a wider range of intelligences than if we taught language purely linguistically. Section four shows the development of a range of cross-curricular thinking and feeling skills that go beyond the language classroom, for example the ‘prototype exercise’ on page 56, the point of which is to teach a lexical set in an interesting way, drawing on logical-mathematical skills. Students are asked to decide how close they consider a variety of bird types – eagle, hummingbird, hen, sparrow, etc – are to the prototypical idea of ‘bird’. Section five anticipates the shape of the rest of the book, which has five chapters: General MI exercises, Teaching from a coursebook, Looking out, Looking in and Self-management. My attention was captured by the accessible layout which features five clear-cut headwords: language focus, proposed MI focus, level, time and preparation, and a set of instructions to carry out the activity in class. Just as the proposed MI focus of the activities includes a wide range of intelligence areas, so too the language focus is very varied, ranging from creative writing, speaking, intensive reading, homophones, spelling, interrogative forms, listening, reading comprehension and so on. I fully intend trying some of these activities with my students, for example, ‘Writing a cinquain’ (creative writing), ‘Spatial metaphor’ (a focus on spatial and logical-mathematical intelligences), ‘Animal quiz’ (homophones, spelling and intensive reading) and ‘The truth about me’ (interpersonal, intrapersonal and logical intelligences). The book ends with a teacher’s quick reference guide but it lacks a ‘further reading’ section, which would prove very useful for teachers willing to expand their knowledge of MI. I would recommend this book to teachers in general who wish to give their teaching a fresher quality and to speed up and enhance their students’ learning processes, and to those teachers who wish to do an in-depth exploration of why certain learners have linguistic difficulties and, at the same time, to help them use their other abilities to the full. Sebastian Amado Buenos Aires, Argentina. Potato Pals 1 by Patrick Jackson and Rie Kimura OUP 2005 Set of six readers with Audio CD 0-19-439174-4 Activity Book 0-19-439190-6 Workbook 0-19-439191-4 Picture Cards 0-19-439192-2 User’s Guide 0-19-439193-0 If you enjoy using stories with young learners, or you have always wanted to use stories but weren’t sure how, Potato Pals could be just what you are looking for! Potato Pals 1 is a set of six readers with audio CD, Activity Book, Workbook, 200 Picture Cards and User’s Guide. The concept is very simple: young learners are helped to develop their communication skills by telling the story of the things they do in their own lives. This is reflected in the titles: In the Morning, At School, At the Park, At Home, Good Friends and In the Evening. The heroes of the stories are six appealing potato characters, Buddy, Daisy, Nina, Dean, Joy and, of course, Chip! The 16-page stories are accompanied by three readings on the CD. These readings, presented in a mid-atlantic accent, include fun sound effects which are important for supporting meaning. The CD also contains a catchy song containing the key sentences for each story. Facing each of the simple but clearly illustrated pages of the story is a page of ‘memoricons’. A memoricon is a little picture cue representing a story sentence. These accumulate on alternate pages and encourage children to repeat and review the language of the previous pages. Each reader comprises eight short key sentences in the simple present tense, and features eight topic words (colour, shape, numbers, weather, feelings and prepositions). Each reader also has between and 11 and 22 focus words, listed at the back. The first CD reading requires the children to listen and repeat the story. The second has them listen and repeat it, using the memoricons in order to reconstruct it. The third gets them to point, say and answer a question. In this way, the key sentences, focus words and topic words are practised and reviewed in a systematic yet enjoyable fashion. The readers are accompanied by two practice books, which add flexibility. Each contains seven pages of activities per story. The first, the Activity Book, is designed for children who are just starting to learn English and helps to develop pencil control, cognitive skills and passive recognition of letters, words and simple sentences. The Workbook is for those who can remember or refer to the language of the readers. Using tracing, matching and puzzles, children write simple words, but not whole sentences. A nice feature of both practice books is a space at the bottom of each page for teachers or parents to check and sign the children’s work. The real strength of the Potato Pals reading package is to be found in the User’s Guide. This is where teachers who were never quite sure about what to do with readers, or busy teachers with little time for extra preparation, are going to feel very supported. Each story unit starts with an ‘At a glance’ chart, showing the story language, the song lyrics, which Picture Cards are needed, and which tracks on the CD to use. The unit is then divided into four lessons. The first concentrates on the key sentences, the second teaches the focus words, the third covers the topic words and the fourth is a complete review. Each lesson includes a prediction activity, a reading that focuses on a different aspect of the story, two practice activities, three games, information needed to do the relevant pages in the practice book and a photocopiable worksheet. The User’s Guide also gives advice on how to tailor the plans to suit lessons of differing lengths, from five to 40 minutes. I particularly like the Quick Tip in each lesson, which provides teachers with an extra idea, and the Potato Wisdom at the end of each unit. (One of my favourites is: Teach like a potato – be versatile!) At the back are more photocopiable worksheets, a model reading with suggestions for questions about each story page illustration, extended readings which provide amplified text for each story, and six photocopiable ‘Potato Awards’. In addition, there are instructions and answer keys for the practice books, together with a list of the Picture Cards. Potato Pals 1 is likely to capture the hearts of your pupils and make your lessons truly enjoyable. Potato Pals 2 is also available to take your pupils to the shops, the town, the beach, the zoo, the farm and on a camping trip. And who knows ... there may be more! Coralyn BradshawAlmería, Spain Grammarman by Brian Boyd www.grammarmancomic.com If you think the best thing to do with comics in the classroom is to confiscate them, watch out! There’s a new superhero in town who’s here to fight their corner. The Grammarman comic, found at www.grammarmancomic.com and published in the New Straits Times in Malaysia and in TELFAsia magazine, is clearly born of a love of comics and a sensitivity to a certain type of teaching situation. The comic’s hero Grammarman is joined by sidekicks Alpha-bot and Syntax to rid the planet of grammatical ‘crimes’ committed by such arch-villains as Uncle Uncountable, Sammy Colon and King Wrong. For readers of a certain age, think Batman meets Whizzer & Chips in the EFL world. The episodes are each designed to address a different grammatical point. A typical example has Grammarman tackling the ‘Article Ants’ who steal all the articles from the frames of the comic, leaving the reader to replace them correctly. The comic is professionally drawn and cleverly written, and has successfully engaged and motivated teenagers at pre-intermediate level and above in my classes in Thailand and Chile. I have used different episodes as a diagnostic tool before introducing a language point; as an evaluative and fun progress check at the end of a focus on a grammatical area; and as a reinforcement of a previous lesson’s work. Although the grammatical areas in the comic are not taught so much as tested, and the language used in the strip may be difficult for the lower levels of teenagers and young learners, they are a wonderfully unthreatening way to approach grammar with these age groups. They look best on an interactive whiteboard, as the effect of the bold colours in the frames is lost a little in photocopying. However, this should not deter teachers from using them in traditional form. Existing episodes tackle punctuation errors, uncountable nouns, article use, ‘common’ mistakes and more, and the author has gone to the trouble of producing voice-overs for each character so the strip can be listened to as well as read. I am sure more ‘crimes’ will be addressed in the future, and I am informed that a radio play on the origin of Grammarman is in production. There’s no doubt that comics in many styles still attract the attention and pocket money of a large body of young students. There are also a good few injokes for the ELT professional, which will maintain your interest as well. If in doubt, check it out – at last there’s a superhero you can call on to pursue the grammar criminals in your classroom! Thom Kiddle Santiago, Chile |
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