Activity 1
The writers of your coursebook may have chosen to present a few vocabulary items first, before learners are exposed to them in context. Alternatively, they may have chosen to 'flood' learners with natural language, from which vocabulary items will be drawn out and focused on later. They may seem to take an approach which sees language as mainly consisting of words that can be combined to make meaning. Then again, they may seem to take grammar as the guiding principle on which to structure learning, and let vocabulary take a lesser role. Which approach do you favour?

Activity 2
You may have used a vocabulary notebook, in which to list the words you wished to remember. The entries might have been personal to you, or written on the advice of your teacher. You may have used an alphabetical ordering system, or grouped words of similar sounds or meanings together. You may have listed equivalents in your first language, drawn visual representations of meanings, or written examples of the new words in context. Aside from keeping a notebook, you may have recited new words to yourself, or written them on cards for periodic review. Some items may have been easier to recall than others, perhaps because they were more frequent, sounded like a word you already knew, or were useful for talking about a topic that interested you.

Activity 3
How you teach will depend very much on your own experience of being taught, and your own preferred ways of learning. Since Howard Gardner's groundbreaking Frames of Mind (1983 - see also Gardner, 1993) there has been a growing awareness of individual differences and of our need to cater for these in our teaching. Factors currently being researched include intelligence, aptitude, learning strategies, language attitude, motivation and identity. (For a readable overview, see Chapter 1 of Mitchell and Myles, 1998)

Activity 4
This activity is designed to familiarize learners with common collocations (see section 10.5). Because it is from a book which is for self study, it conforms to what we expect of such a publication, namely, a clear rubric that a student working alone can understand; only one possible correct answer that can be checked in an answer key at the back of the book; and work suitable for individuals, with no necessity for pair or whole class discussion or for teacher support. The limitations of this exercise in a class context mostly relate to its individual nature and to its focus on form. For self-study purposes, the learner has to choose the most common collocation, but are other combinations possible? In a class situation other combinations could be discussed, evaluated and accepted or rejected, with reference to dictionaries. In adapting it for communicative language teaching purposes in a classroom, we could engineer discussion, and add focus on meaning. To do this we might invite learners to do the exercise in pairs or groups, have each pair or group feed back one answer to the teacher for comment. We might more creatively set up a communication task in which students mingle: each student has one word written on a card, which they have to pair up to another student's word, then with their new partner they work together to put the pair of words in a sentence, and finally the whole class write their sentences on the board for discussion and comment. To introduce a consciousness-raising element (see Module 3, section 3.3.4, and Module 4, section 4.4.6.), we might ask the pairs of students working together to use a dictionary to find other collocates of the words they had worked with, or to use a concordancing package (see section 10.2) to find out how their words behave in context. In all these class activities the teacher would be on hand, moving around the classroom, to act as resource person or facilitator if needed.

Activity 5
Willis (1990: 30-32) summarizes the main semantic fields for the word 'way' as follows:

1. Method, means.
2. Manner, style, behaviour.
3. What happens, what is the case.
4. Degree, extent, respect.
5. Location, movement, direction, space.
6. Distance, extent.
7. Time.
8. Miscellaneous.

In addition to these semantic areas, a number of discourse uses were identified, such as 'by the way' and 'by way of'.

It is interesting to note which words come immediately before 'way' and immediately after it. For example, immediately after 'way' we can find, in this order: 'of', 'to', 'in', 'that', 'and', 'the', 'I', 'out', 'they', 'he', 'as', 'it', and 'through'. These are all so-called right-hand collocates of 'way'. In looking at the words immediately before the item, we find that the ones for 'way' and 'ways' are different. Left-hand collocates for 'ways' include expressions of quantity such as 'many', 'other', 'separate' and 'some'. 'Ways' generally follows the same usage as 'way', but almost all occurrences fall into categories 1) and 2), ie they refer to method, means, manner, style or behaviour.

The first entry for 'way' in the Collins COBUILD Dictionary gives its most frequent meaning:

'Way /wei/, ways. If you refer to a way of doing something or a way to do it, you are referring to how you do it, for example the series of things that you do in order to achieve it, or the course of action that you take. eg … different ways of cooking fish… A pushchair is a handy way to take a young child shopping … You can qualify for a pension in two ways … ways in which the present service could be improved … In what way can I help you? She had decided on this course as the only way out of a hopeless situation.'

You may have been debating, as you worked through this activity, how much of the knowledge presented via these concordances was lexical, and how much grammatical. Michael Lewis, the originator of the lexical approach to language teaching, solves the dilemma of how to describe language form by using the term, lexicogrammar.

Activity 6
I feel there are broadly three categories here. 'Then' and 'well' seem to have a summarizing function. 'Like', 'kind of' and 'you know' seem to be softeners, smoothing out what might otherwise be rather bald statements and creating a more interactive style. 'Stuff like that', 'and things' and 'whatever' belong to the category of vague language that is often used amongst friends and avoids the kind of precision that one would expect in formal contexts. Vague language is explored by Joanna Channell (1994) in her book of the same name.

Activity 7
To work out the meaning of the English words you need world knowledge (electric toasters don't have tails; inanimate objects don't think and feel) and grammatical knowledge (since 'wug' is preceded by the article 'a', it must function as a noun) In the Greek extract 'gramis' looks similar to 'grames' but 'grames' comes after 'all' (so that must be plural - are these different forms of the same root word?). And what is the relationship between 'tilefonima' and 'tilefono'? We should teach our learners to use such strategies.

Activity 8
Mother-child extract: The first utterance of 'black' is understood correctly. However, the second occurrence is ambiguous because the preceding words are also unclear. The mother checks what is meant by asking a question made up of what she supposes to be a reformulation of the child's intended utterance. In response, the child is able to articulate 'black' correctly, having previously heard the mother do so, and this is reinforced by the mother's repetition. The mother's lesson to her child here is thus a knowledge of the pronunciation of the word, by in effect using the opposition of 'back' / 'black' to point out that misunderstanding can occur if the 'l' is not pronounced.

Teacher-Student extract: The student gives a definition of 'nephew' as 'sister's daughter' and thus confuses the teacher until mention is made of 'Police', when the teacher assumes the person in question to be male, ie 'sister's son' instead. The amount of repetition here, as in the previous extract, is noteworthy. As teachers, we should not underestimate the amount of repetition and recycling needed for a new vocabulary item to pass into long term memory.

Activity 9
For teaching the word 'boots', the teacher uses definition ('special big shoes') and not really antonym but contrast, ie 'not shoes but'. 'Shoes' are of the same class as 'boots' within the umbrella term 'footwear'. The second teacher also uses contrast, 'hair', to elicit 'feathers'.

The German teacher uses definition linked to illustration and then prompts by providing the first letters, then the first syllable to correct the student's erroneous suggestion.

Activity 10
Consider the following expressions and their equivalents in French, Spanish, German and Italian (slightly adapted from The Panton Book of Idioms for Polyglots):
To make hay while the sun shines / Il faut battre le fer tant qu'il est chaud / Aprovechar la ocasión / Das Eisen schmieden, solange es heiss ist / Battere il ferro finché è caldo.
What do the cultural variations here suggest?

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush / Un 'tiens' vaut mieux que deux 'tu l'auras' / Más vale pájaro en mano que ciento volando / Ein Sperling in der Hand ist besser als eine Taube auf dem Dach / Meglio un uovo oggi che una gallina domani
Most languages use the hunting metaphor, but Italian puts it in culinary terms. What does this suggest?

Every cloud has a silver lining / Chaque chose a du bon / No hay mal que por bien no venga / Jedes Unglück hat auch sein Gutes / Ogni cosa ha il suo lato buono.
English is the only language that uses the concept of 'cloud' - is this because we experience so many?

Activity 11
A straw poll of 25 native speaker language teachers in my Department showed that most would actively teach colloquialisms, in the interests of promoting naturalness in language production. Vulgarisms caused a much more mixed response, the majority never having taught swear words, even receptively, unless incidentally within the context of an authentic text that was being studied. However, the general feeling was that they did not like to hear foreigners using swear words. If they did so, the teachers realized that they might immediately form a negative impression of such speakers. This was so, even though all the teachers would accept native speaker use of swear words in certain informal contexts.

Activity 12
In the first extract, the teacher is exploring morphology receptively by contrasting 'bored' with 'boring'. In the second extract, the teacher is clearing up a confusion between the sound and spelling of 'super' and 'supper'. In the standard pronunciation of English, known as Received Pronunciation, this is a mimimal pair, ie the pronunciation differs in one phoneme: a short vowel as opposed to a long vowel. The teacher also gives a definition of the word. There are further cultural as well as linguistic aspects here that could be noted. In the north of England, for example, these words could be homophones. There are also different customs as regards the accepted time for eating 'supper', and for the size of the meal designated by that term.

Activity 13
There would be good arguments, I think, for teaching 'on the contrary', and 'in order that' as single items, and for teaching 'potato chips', 'a fat chance', and 'a red herring' as MWU idiomatic expressions. There are more tenuous links between 'thin' and 'excuse', and the least fixed for me is 'sweet woman'. I would teach these as separate individual items.

Activity 14
This is one suggestion. I would begin by showing two visuals, one of a rural landscape and one of an area where there are factories. I would ask 'How would you describe these two places?' 'This is a peaceful area, a rural area. But what about this one?' 'What are these buildings? Factories … what's another word for establishments where products are made, manufactured? Industry? Industry is a noun. What's the adjective from 'industry'? I would have the students repeat the word, 'industrial' and then spell it, putting the stress on the second syllable and having the class repeat the word again. I would write the word with an accompanying collocate, such as 'area' or 'city'. I would check understanding by asking: 'Would the air be clean or dirty in an industrial area?' 'Would you prefer to live in an industrial area or a rural area?'

Activity 15
'Bungalow' is a difficult item to teach, because the concept differs from culture to culture: in some languages, the term means a holiday home or beach hut made of wood, so that the material may well be a significant clue to meaning for these students. The teacher has not compared 'bungalow' with other types of house, such as 'detached' or 'terrace', with visuals of each. The teacher has not pointed out that 'floor' has the meaning of 'level', as well as referring to the ground under our feet. An added complication is that the first language of this teacher's students is Arabic, in which 'one' can be seen as synonymous with 'a', since Arabic has no articles.

Activity 16
In my definition, this is does not constitute presentation: in this extract, the teacher simply supplies the item. Here the item, 'backpack' is being acquired, not taught. In other words, this is implicit instruction, if it is indeed perceived as instruction at all. In order for vocabulary items to be presented, it is necessary for learners to notice them and work with them, ie for the instruction to be made explicit. The techniques of pre-familiarization and post-familiarization ensure this. A point to make about presenting new vocabulary in context within a reading or listening passage is that, of course, post-familiarization applies, ie the item is encountered first, then the sense.

Activity 17
There was a fierce debate in the 1980s about authenticity. The prevailing consensus then was that authentic material should be used as much as possible. The tasks devised for reading and listening were simplified, but the text themselves were not. Nowadays we are not so ready to dismiss the use of simplified texts, especially at lower levels. We have the option of controlling the difficulty both of the materials themselves and of the tasks we set to go with them. As you read through this section, you will be introduced to ways of controlling the vocabulary load for your learners.

Activity 18
The adaptation is for advanced learners, so not much simplification is needed. Nevertheless, the wordcount has been reduced from 196 words to 98 and there are both omissions and changes.

a) Omissions:
'With a rigid grace' has been omitted altogether, as has the part about palms being placed on the defendant's table, so only the sitting upright is given as the source of Kasuo Miyamoto's detachment. There is no reference in this first paragraph to the citizens in the public gallery. The writer of the simplified text has chosen to concentrate on the defendant. You could argue that something has been lost here, but it is difficult to convey this picture in simple terms - 'rigid' and 'grace' are not normal collocates, and neither are 'palms' and 'softly'. The main emphasis is - as it should be - on the defendant. Learners will be drawn into the story by identifying with this stranger. 'Irrefutable physical strength and of precise, even imperial bearing' has also been omitted. Again something has been lost but 'irrefutable' and 'bearing' are not very frequent items and this additional information is not crucial to understanding.

b) Changes from low to higher frequency items:

• 'Flicker' becomes 'smallest movement'.
• 'Figure' becomes 'body'.
• 'Communicated the impression' becomes 'spoke of'.
• 'Angular' becomes 'sharp edged'.
• 'Musculature' becomes 'muscles'.
• 'Prominent' becomes 'stand out'.
• 'In the face of' becomes 'as'.
• 'Trained' becomes 'looked'.

Activity 19
Formal routine service encounters consist of transactional language and therefore tend to contain routine words and phrases. This is such a telephone conversation, and perhaps therefore appears authentic. The main lexical items that need to be understood are 'nouveau catalogue', ' tariff correspondant' and 'vos coordonnées', all of which occur in a business context but not normally in telephone conversations between friends. There are also lexical chunks common in this context which can be contrasted with more informal situations, such as 'voilà c'est noté', 'je vous en prie', 'bien sûr'.

The main concepts to get across to learners about this extract are that it is a formal encounter between protagonists who do not know each other, ie certain lexical chunks are favoured over other more informal ones; that there is a request from the caller for specific information, ie a catalogue and price list; and there is a request for specific information from the receiver, ie contact details. Learners need to be aware of the new lexical items but also how, when, and with whom they might be used.

Here is an idea for a worksheet to help learners with these concepts. It helps give the context first of all, and then helps familiarize the items themselves. The teacher may not need to explain meaning, since the learners will have an opportunity to work this out from the context. After completing this worksheet, teacher and learners can discuss meaning, use and pronunciation. The teacher could then invite learners to think how the same information would be requested from someone they knew well. Learners could construct similar dialogues.

'Ecoutez l'entretien téléphonique.

1. L'entretien a lieu
   1. au sein d'une même entreprise
   2. entre deux entreprises
   3. hors de l'entreprise
2. Avant l'entretien, les interlocuteurs
   1. se connaissaient
   2. ne se connaissaient pas
3. Le but de l'entretien est
   1. d'informer
   2. de s'informer
   3. de négocier
4. Le ton de l'entretien est
   1. chaleureux
   2. amical
   3. formel

Ecoutez encore une fois.

5. L'émetteur veut
   1. un catalogue
   2. des produits
6. Le receveur veut
   1. un tarif
   2. des coordonnées
7. L'émetteur dit
   1. Je vous remercie
   2. Merci beaucoup
   3. Très bien.
8. Le receveur dit
   1. Bien sûr
   2. Pas de problème
   3. D'accord.

(Material adapted from Danilo and Penfornis, 1993)

Activity 20
This is a trick question. In fact, none of these rubrics was used in an examination, but all of them could have been.

For testing purposes
As written, these rubrics could well be used in a testing situation, though some are more likely testing instruments than others. There is no reason why a crossword should not be given as a test item, as it is easily scored, but I have never seen one in a formal test. The definition idea, if given as a test item, would be difficult to mark, as quite considerable variation in answers is possible, causing problems for assessment. The other rubrics would be suitable for formal tests, as they signal items that could be objectively scored. Replacing certain phrases by others might prompt a variety of responses, but in fact these items are quite constrained, so that only one answer is possible to each question.

For teaching purposes
All these rubrics would be capable of being used in class, but the main point is that they would need to be part of the final stage of any teaching procedure. Previous to their use, learners would be exposed to the vocabulary needed, and would practise it, before coming to this final stage. As you read on in this section, you will discover ideas for such procedures.