Categories: Education

Choosing a Good Textbook for Your Self-Study of a Foreign Language?

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A good publication is a self-taught language learner’s best friend!

What makes a particular publication a good source of reference for just a self-taught language learner? Currently, I would like to present the features of a good self-study reference e-book and thus possibly answer that question. There are many books available to choose from. As the bookstores are loaded with different books, how can most of us choose the right one? The thumb rule at this point is to pay attention to some key features the textbook should have. I will aim to give a brief outline of the for you. Obviously, not every e-book we come across in a bookstore will be just excellent and healthy for several reasons. In this case, the textbooks commonly used in language schools did not work for me as they did not own an answer key. Moreover, it was hard to follow them and not use a teacher.

Well, it is presumed that books are guys’ best friends. And so they may also be in the context of language learning. You must have an excellent source of reference full of texts, grammar rules, and vocabulary sections, even if you are not just a keen book lover. To take a long story short, the book needs to be learner-friendly as you will refer to that quite often. So let us have a significantly closer look at what the textbook needs to have to meet this specific requirement:

1 . TEXTBOOK TOTAL ORGANIZATION – What I mean by this is if the textbook is broken into single units/classes. Then you can plan accordingly, but it will surely be a lot easier to organize your learning moment – i. e. give attention to one unit in a few days, etc.

2 . PRONUNCIATION OPENING UNITS – Usually, I prefer the book to have a distinct section on pronunciation alone. Why? The reason is the following one particular: once you go through those products, you can familiarize yourself with pronunciation principles (by following examples incorporated into that section and at the same time playing the recordings). As these sections are separate, it is possible to come back to them anytime you like without having to resort to flicking from the whole book.

3. Classes are presented by the PPP approach, I., at the. Presentation, practice, and generation:

PRESENTATION – The session unit needs a debate (or a short text) whereby new words and syntax structures will be presented. In addition, it will be helpful for you to issue a section with a vocabulary list (with translations into the mother tongue). This way, you do not lose time finding the explanations of new words, and then you can focus on remembering those completely new vocabulary units.

PRACTICE instructions Usually, the text/dialogue will likely be accompanied by reading or playing comprehension exercises, etc . that will enable you to practice and use the newly learned grammar in addition to vocabulary chunks.

PRODUCTION instructions At the end of every lesson, there could be a writing practice portion for you. At first, especially if you examine on your own, it may be difficult to imagine if the texts you authored are correct. You can ask native speakers to get help or a friend connected with yours who learns that language to help you out. Don’t inside and remember that practice makes perfect! Suggestions ¡Practicar es mejorar! /Cwiczenie czyni mistrza!
4. SYNTAX RULES are presented beautifully using sentence examples having translations into your mother is usually a, e. g. verbs conjugations and their patterns in a completely new grammar tense. (Also, I liked when the textbook defined the usage of a particular tense or grammar structure, so I understood when and how I should use it).

5. A COMPACT DISK with recordings and TRANSCRIPTS of (all) the recordings included in the textbook: It is also crucial if you intend to study on your own and may not have the chance to listen to the particular teacher who would read the text messages at loud. The transcripts will help you if you do not understand or perhaps find it hard to follow the recordings; you can then consult your thesaurus, find the meaning of unidentified words, attempt to listen to it once again, and hopefully realize more.

6. WORDLISTS AND ALSO GRAMMAR PAGES. Those portions can usually be found at the very end of the textbook. Wordlists will probably be helpful when you wish to replace the vocabulary from an offered lesson unit. The lyrics will frequently have an international phonetic alphabet transcription (IPA).

ILLUSTRATION: a box (IPA transcription) – /’boks/ (Please note that this transcription is considerably simplified as I could not use IPA characters in this article’s body).

At first glance, the IPA characters may scare an individual. Still, once you master the particular pronunciation of those ‘weird characters,’ you will find it irreplaceable while learning new words and their pronunciation. Grammar pages have a summary of tenses (their patterns and usage) or verb conjugations, as well as other helpful information concerning the language’s sentence structure.

7. And also, last but not least, an ANSWER KEY : (For me, this is the schedule – it is efficient when we want to check the replies and see how many mistakes most of us made. In my case, a new book without a detailed response to the key was unproductive and did not work out… Regardless of excellent the content, as well as style could be as I seemed to be frustrated when not able to look at my exercises.

A perfect textbook is ‘Espanol de Pe a Pa,’ part 1, by Ould – Wawrykowicz. (A free sample segment of this book can be found over the internet to see how it can be organized).

I learned Spanish with this e-book, and I enjoyed the item. The book has every one of the previously mentioned features. Moreover, it can be full of funny and bright-colored pictures. Photos helped me memorize new thoughts and have fun while finding out. I did not feel ‘lost’ seeing that all the new texts acquired vocabulary lists, and replies were provided to all often the exercises in the book.