Herbert Puchta

‘I would strongly recommend all teachers to use English in Mind with their young learners. It is the best course on the market for younger teenagers aged between 13 and 15’.

Four YL teachers and the DoS from International House in Tbilisi, Georgia have been studying and trying out the first three published levels of English in Mind over the past few months. All of us agree: this course is first-rate

The teachers were asked to comment on the kind of questions that we all ask when considering a new text. Here are the questions and here are their detailed comments.

What syllabus does the course follow? ‘The course follows a multi-skills approach. The syllabus integrates grammar, systematic vocabulary development and ‘conversational chunks’ with a strong skill component. Each Unit includes listening and writing skill work as well as speaking and reading activities. The vocabulary and grammar are regularly recycled.’
What about the methodology? ‘The course combines a communicative approach to developing the pupils’ language skills with a cognitive approach to grammar. The books present the pupils with examples of the target grammar, and the pupils are then asked to work out the rules for themselves – thus using inductive reasoning to help pupils understand language systems’.
Is the course sensitive to the special needs of this age group? ‘The authors clearly understand young people. They have also made a careful study of research into the special needs of young teenagers, and they have applied the results of this research to the development of the course. The text-topics are of genuine interest to young teenagers without being condescending, the tasks are challenging and geared to this age group, and the continuing story-line about four young people held our pupils’ attention and sympathy.’
What about cultural content? ‘While some course books try to attract teenagers’ interest by going down-market and feeding the pupils with an undiluted diet of pop songs and video games, this course steers a middle course: it is neither very up-market nor ultra-down market. There are pop songs, but there is adventure and wild life and legend and history too. And there are texts about different countries of the English-speaking world (including Ireland, Wales, Scotland, New Zealand, Australia and the Caribbean as well as England and the USA – and the USA is represented by a variety of places including California and Miami). There are sections on cross-cultural themes that help pupils to understand the differences between their own culture and those described in the texts. There are sections on literature and guidance on further reading outside the textbook. This course is aimed at intelligent modern teenagers and does not talk down to them. It feeds on the curiosity and sense of wonder that young teenagers possess when given the right materials. The cultural content is just right for this age group’
What kind of input texts does the course present? ‘The course contains excerpts from real books such as novels and biographies, from magazine articles and newspaper stories, interviews, songs and photo-stories. There is a wide variety of text-types in the course, and pupils are exposed to many kinds of English.’
How much support for the teacher does the course provide? ‘The Teachers Book is excellent, providing effective lesson plans which are specially useful for the hard-pressed or inexperienced teacher. In addition, there is a helpful Teachers Resource Pack, full of extra activities, and particularly practical in that it provides suggestions for both strong and weaker classes. There are Progress Tests, including listening and speaking tests (an important feature which is not always included in other courses). The workbooks offer ready-made homework as well. In short, this course is very supportive to the teacher.’
What about design? ‘The textbooks are attractive, with plenty of colourful pictures. The young learners enjoyed looking at the books. The pages are uncluttered and clearly laid out. It is quite amazing how textbook design has improved over the past 20 years or so. Whereas it was common to have crowded and confused texts a generation ago, modern texts can stand comparison with the best glossy magazines. This course is exceptionally attractive to the eye’
How do these texts compare with the competition? ‘One can put YL texts on a cline. At one end are the up-market ones that cater for serious young teenagers and are recognizably like the sort of thing we studied at school in days gone by: they include extracts from serious literature, no-nonsense grammar, some history and legend, stories of heroes, etc. I would include the now rather venerable ‘Cambridge English for Schools’ in this category, along with the excellent new Longman course ‘Opportunities’ (which we have found to be specially suitable for older teenagers). At the other end of the cline are courses like ‘Streetwise’ which try to cater for the less motivated and less able by concentrating on ultra-popular topics and avoiding rigorous analytical work. English in Mind is near the top end of this cline. It is as full of interesting texts and as challenging as Opportunities, but we have found it to be more suitable than that admirable course for younger teenagers.

Conclusion. We strongly recommend teachers to adopt this new YL course – English in Mind. We also strongly recommend CUP’s management to extend the course into upper intermediate and advanced levels (advanced teenage materials are a significant gap in the market at present). A final point is that the course is likely to be used in secondary schools in many countries round the world, as well as in specialised language schools. It is therefore an added bonus that the course promotes broad educational aims such as tolerance, knowledge, clear thinking and sensitivity, as well as more purely linguistic aims. In short, English in Mind is a very welcome addition to the materials on the market for teenagers. It will be a great success.