To the Teacher

This English Course book may be taught chronologically beginning with Unit 1 or thematically focusing upon specific subjects such as “Industrialization of America” or “World War II” or any other. Each unit is designed to take six hours to complete. At the same time this course will gain dramatically if it is supported with thematic video and though it is not provided with this course it can be useful to viewing a series of programs related to the history of the United States which are often broadcast at BBC History Channel, otherwise viewing similar series of programs devoted to the history of Russia which are frequently shown on the Russian Television Channel (Russia). These recommended educating videos can be priory recorded, stored and viewed at proper time without loosing the teaching time.

Pair and small group activities are used throughout the presented course. Teacher should carefully monitor the amount of time devoted to any particular task to insure that students sufficient time to properly complete it. Once a group activity is complete, the teacher should call upon various members of the class to share the substance of their group’s discussion with the rest of the class.

New words are treated in the “Vocabulary” section of each unit. Students may be asked to identify six or seven items which they do not know from a lengthy vocabulary list. Then other students may both give and receive assistance in understanding the meaning of those words.

Particular care should be taken in selecting visuals for every unit. Over here the authors would like to encourage teachers to use additional pictures, maps, charts, graphs and handouts, and encourage students to share their impressions and ideas with one another.

Communication and interaction are the heart of this course. Keeping this in mind, teachers can use the text and video to create a positive learning environment in which the students start communicating about concerns not only central to the country, but to their lives as well.

Teachers may assign homework using the reading and writing sections of each unit; but all homework should be shared in small groups at the next class meeting before they are discussed or submitted to the teacher for feedback.

Teaching writing and producing essays involves a lot of preparatory work related to structuring of essays, using of logical and process indicators as well as other vocabulary and stylistic analysis. And though this textbook is not aimed at teaching writing techniques, teachers are recommended to explain these aspects of writing essays prior to the writing process.