New Communication Tasks

GIULIANO IANTORNO – MARIO PAPA

NEW COMMUCATION TASKS

Zanichelli Editore, Bologna, 1988

 

New Communication Tasks is an English language course addressed to students aged 11-13. The course contains varied and motivating linguistic material which is immediately used by the students for communicative aims. The syllabus is organized according to functional criteria, without neglecting an accurate progression of the grammatical structures.

Besides, some important structures like the simple present and the past tense are presented quite early on in the course so as to allow the students to communicate in a realistic way from the very beginning of the course.

The students are involved in carrying out listening comprehension activities, writing activities, summaries, letter and dialogue writing, answering questionnaires and others. At the same time, the students exercise important communicative functions like describing, narrating, giving instructions, explaining, contradicting, etc.

New Communication Tasks is made up of 46 learning units. Each unit is divided into four sections (Dialogues, Communication Tasks, Language Activities, Language Work) and guides the students not only to the integrated development of the main language skills, but also to the development of other important skills like note-taking, summing up, preparing questionnaires, etc.

The communicative functions presented in the dialogues are exercised in the Communication Tasks: the activities are generally carried out in pairs, and between the two students who form each pair there is always an information gap. The information gap allows the students to carry out activities which are truly communicative and realistic.

In the section Language Activities the students find a large number of listening comprehension activities, reading passages about the British way of life, accompanied by comprehension exercises, exercises guiding the students to make summaries of the reading passages, 27 songs, numerous open dialogues, and a large number of reading passages about family life.

The section Language Work contains grammar notes immediately followed by numerous written exercises (there are a total of 450). The grammar rules are mainly presented with the inductive method.

New Communication Tasks is accompanied by: 

* a detailed Teacher’s Guide that allows the teachers to fully exploit the possibilities offered by the course; it also contains a series of tests; 

* 6 audio cassettes containing the recording of all the dialogues, the listening comprehension exercises, the open dialogues, and the songs;

* 1 audio cassette for the students containing the recording of all the dialogues of the 46 learning units;

* 1 audio cassette containing the recording of the songs.

 

In 1986 New Communication Tasks was published in the USA by the Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachusetts, with the title Turning Points and was largely and successfully used in different parts of the world.