When it comes to beginner level books, it’s difficult to know what kind of material will be relevant to our students. As teachers we sometimes ask ourselves “are my students absolute beginners or do they have some knowledge of the language?” For such a situation New Headway Beginner is a great book to use. This book covers all of the basics, in addition to more advanced language structures as the student progresses with each unit.
Overview
New Headway Beginner is the first book in the New Headway series; throughout its 14 diverse units, a lot is covered including grammar, vocabulary, writing, and speaking activities. Every unit is approximately 8 pages long and the activities provided in each lesson are easy to follow and relevant to the students’ level. The topics throughout the book deal with things like food, likes/dislikes, asking questions, life at home, travel, and several other basic level subjects; the layout of each unit is simple and easy to follow, but the book is heavy on text and it may intimidate or even bore some beginner level students.
In each lesson the student will work on a variety of activities that will help them put all of their language skills to use. In every lesson students will go over listening activities, matching and fill-in-the-blank grammar exercises, reading comprehension sections and partner activities or writing exercise to wrap up each lesson. As mentioned before each lesson is 8 pages long and students will take some time transitioning from lesson to lesson due to the abundance and variety of information presented in each chapter.
"This book is more appropriate for students who already have a foundation in the language and would like to prepare themselves for the pre-intermediate level."
Pros:
· The book has many partner activities that encourage students to work together and practice their speaking skills in class.
· Each chapter has a wide variety of activities that help students put all four language skills to use.
· In each lesson there are light blue grammar boxes that give extra examples and explanations to more difficult grammar structures.
Cons:
· Some reading activities in the book might be too long or too challenging for beginner level students.
· Some of the vocabulary seen in the reading exercises might be too advanced for beginner level students.
· Certain listening activities are a bit too fast paced and might be more appropriate for lower intermediate students.
Recommended For:
· Classes of at least 4 students to get the most out of the partner activities.
· Students with at least some knowledge of English.
· Teachers who want to prepare their students to move on to the next language level.
New Headway Beginner is a great book to use, but although it claims to be for beginners, I would not recommend the text to “absolute beginners”. This book is more appropriate for students who already have a foundation in the language and would like to prepare themselves for the pre-intermediate level.
