PIPPIN PUBLISHING

REFLECTIONS: DEVELOPING PROFICIENCY IN ENGLISH

ISBN: 0-88751-043-4    View Graphical Site    Go Back

Reflections: Developing Proficiency in English is designed primarily for students of English as a Foreign Language at the high intermediate to advanced levels. This integrated language activity book is suitable for use in senior high school, college and university classes, as well as in adult education programs.

What Is "Reflections"?

Reflections consists of two sections. Part One contains integrated language activities evolving from selected readings, while Part Two focuses on discussion, oral presentations and writing activities based on "situational" dilemmas drawn from everyday life.

Assuming that students have already mastered the basic elements of English structures, Reflections focuses on the  grammar difficulties that still pose problems for the advanced learner: verbs (including a review of tenses, the conditional, indirect speech, modals and verbals), prepositions and sentence construction, including subordinate and relative clauses. All the grammar activities, however, strongly encourage students to visualize grammatical functions in a living context.

The readings vary in length and difficulty, and encompass a wide sampling of literary genres: articles, short fiction and non-fiction, poetry and drama. They range the world in both content and authorship. Through examining the choices other writers have made with respect to word selection, sentence structure, imagery, tone and style, as well as by engaging in fairly sophisticated discussions of both the text and the assumptions that lie behind it, the reader's interest will be first provoked, then engaged, stimulated and challenged.

Paperback  6-3/4" x 9-3/4"

PART 1 Readings and Reading Activities

Part 1 at a Glance (Themes and Vocabulary)
Part 1 at a Glance (Discussion, Writing and Grammar)

   PROSE
   A Traveller’s Tale / John Fraser
   A Visitor / Emily Carr
   Going for the Gold / Mary Mclver
   The Day It Rained Forever / Taskeen Hamidullah
   Human Rights and Human Responsibilities / The Dalai Lama
   The Shape of the Law / Farley Mowat
   The Wages of Sin / Trevor Ferguson
   The Avalon Notes and Ten years with the Same Dog / Pamela
     Brown
   My Private Solitude / Keitha MacIntosh
   The Stepmother / Roma Gelblum-Bross
 
   THE ESSAY
   Family Silliness, Domestic Clowning / J.B. Priestley
   On Hope and Suicide / Václav Havel

   POETRY
   The Road Not Taken / Robert Frost
   Aftermath / Meg Cooper
   The Shark / E.J. Pratt
   to My Son / Frances Davis
   from Tao Teh Ching / Lao Tzu
   Ynne Auncient Daeyes / Charles Abbott Conway

      DRAMA
   from Bethune / Rod Langley

PART 2 Oral Activities

Part 2 at a Glance

   Scenarios from Everyday Life
   Short-Term Gain  -  Long-Term Pain?
   Inheritance
   Desperately Seeking...
   Whose Needs Come First?
   Work and the Family
   The Continuing Story of...
   A Living Will
   Best Interests of the Child
   The Best Candidate
   Who’s at Fault?
   Whodunit?

Index  -  Grammar and Vocabulary Activities

"I have witnessed its success in engaging students in meaningful and enthusiastic exchanges in their second language...overall, this is a textbook worth considering."
--  Jennifer St. John at University of Ottawa