Page 39 - ELG2503 March Issue 493

REVIEWS

100 Great Activities
The Best of the Cambridge Handbooks for
Language Teachers
Edited by Penny Ur and Scott Thornbury, 2024
ISBN:978-1-009-34873-7
hat a pleasure it was to review
this title, one that had me
reflecting on the several in this
Wgroundbreaking series I had used
early in my career as a language teacher back
in the 1980s; it not only provides a carefully
chosen selection of the best of hundeds of
helpful classroom activities, but also serves in
many ways as an historical document.
In his fascinating foreword, Michael Swan
recounts how the series first saw the light of
day in the late ’70s when, having exhausted all
other topics, he and Adrian Du Plessis - the
first Head of ELT publishing at CUP - began
to discuss matters in a mountain-top cabin in
the French Alps as they were unable to leave
due to fog.
The series now spans over 45 years,
and to put this book together each of the
series’ authors were invited to submit their
personal favourites from their own books
and provide brief comments on reasons
for their choices. From a very long list, the
authors of this title narrowed this down to
a final 100.
Put your hand up if you can recall the first
title in the series, written by Alan Maley.
Yes, it was his immensely successful ‘Drama
Techniques in Language Learning’ (1978).
Seeing the potential that Maley’s formula
of a theoretical introduction followed by
practical classroom tasks offered, Michael
Swan was appointed by Adrian Du Plessis as
the first series editor. Iconic titles to follow
during his era were Friedericke Klippel’s
‘Keep Talking’ (1984), and Andrew Wright’s
‘Pictures for Language Learning’ (1989)—
and many others that readers of the Gazette
could no doubt name; several are currently
in their second and third editions.
Penny Ur took over the editorship in 1995,
adding over twenty new titles that covered
a wide range of media such as newspapers,
poems and the internet, along with various
teaching contexts, including business,
teenagers and multi-level classes. The activities are grouped into six running dictations, then what have you been
Since Scott Thornbury took the reins categories: the four skills, plus the two main doing all these years?
in 2005, the series has been extended to language systems: Grammar and Vocabulary. As it contains a veritable mountain of
around 50 titles, many of which reflect recent Hands up at the back if you can tell me motivating, practical classroom tasks that
innovations such as CLIL and inter-cultural which skill is given most coverage? Yes, have been tried and tested down the years,
competence. Speaking, of course, which after all is the a language teaching department without at
Activities included in this title were main reason language learners language- least one copy of this title at hand is seriously
selected according to several criteria. learn, so to speak. Of the 36 in this section, missing out.
Firstly, plausability: does it meet teacher I was not at all surprised to see that six
expectations as to what works in the came from Klippel’s ‘Keep Talking’, the first
language classroom? I ever used, and still my favourite. In case
Another criteria included likely learning you didn’t already know this, the iconic task
value; probably the most important, as to ‘Find Someone Who...’ originated from Wayne Trotman is
sometimes teachers need to be reminded this title. a teacher educator
that we are not there merely to entertain. The second largest category is devoted at Izmir Katip
Interest, adaptabiliy and simplicity were to Writing, with 23 activities, and I was Çelebi University,
also key to selection; if they take so long delighted to see Dictogloss, taken from Paul Izmir, Turkey.
to prepare and execute, then what’s Davis and Mario Rinvolucri’s ‘Dictation’
the point! (1988). If you are yet to use dictogloss or
editorial@elgazette.com 39