Elementary Refresher Course [antikvár]

INTRODUCTIONThe purpose of this book is to provide teachers and students with material for practising points of English structure which they should already have covered, but which experience has shown to be particularly resistant to correct use. This book makes use of the principle of teaching by contrast; for example, when the uses of the definite article are dealt with, it is not treated in isolation. Instead, it is contrasted with the indefinite article (in paragraph 1); and then with Zero (in paragraph 2).Many teachers have noticed that, after their students have gone through an exercise consisting of twenty or more isolated sentences, torn from their contexts and presented one after the other, they still make the mistake that the exercise is intended to correct. This is because there is little or no carry-over, or transfer, from the ability to do an exercise of this type and the abihty to get the same point right in writing a connected piece. Moreover, the average student* finds it difficult to keep on switching from the context of one isolated sentence to that of the next, since this requires considerable mental agility and considerable efforts of the imagination. In this book, therefore, all the exercises are contextualized; i.e. there are no isolated sentences, but only pieces consisting of a number of sentences telhng a connected story.Each exercise is divided into four parts: first the students are asked to study a piece carefully, paying particular attention to the items in heavy type; then they are asked to turn to the corresponding Test A, which consists of the same piece with the items in heavy type omitted. The students have to fill in the blanks from memory, without looking at the original piece.* The exceptionally gifted student is, of course, no problem, since he manages to learn whatever the methods used by the teacher.