Teaching on a bilingual programme is an exciting opportunity, but it is also a real challenge. That’s why we believe that specially designed textbooks, supported by a range of additional online resources for teachers, provide the perfect platform on which you can build creative lessons. Our books mean that you can spend less time checking terminology and adapting material to the English level of your students, and more time preparing activities that will stimulate their interest in the subject.
How can LinguaFrame’s books help you as a teacher?
- LinguaFrame’s books cover all of key areas of the ESO curriculum, explaining them in a simple and clear style that reflects the English level of your students.
- The books have a very flexible format: chapters are split into topics, and each topic has its own questions and/or exercises.
- This modular approach makes it easy for you to do some topics in English, and some topics in Spanish, even within a single chapter.
- Our books contain all of the terminology you need to explain the subject, making it easier for you to prepare your lessons. As the books are written by highly-qualified native English speakers, you can be confident that the terminology is accurate and the language is grammatically correct.
- Our online Teachers’ Resources help you to prepare your classes and provide access to additional material.
Visual presentation
Our textbooks look very different from most textbooks on the market. This reflects the particular challenges involved in teaching students in their second language. A long page of uninterrupted black text can seem very intimidating to students at bilingual schools, particularly in the early years. Not only do your students face the challenge of grasping the content, they also need to understand the individual words, many of which may be new to them. Our books help them by:
- breaking down chapters into bite-size topics, immediately followed by questions to test comprehension;
- including lots of pictures, cartoons, maps and clearly-labelled diagrams to explain key concepts;
- using a system of colour-coding to introduce new keywords and to highlight similarities between words.
The design and presentation of the books apply the principles of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). The aim is to use “scaffolding” techniques like the ones described above to help students bridge the language divide, so that they can master the subject while also improving their language skills.
Questions and exercises
- There are lots of exercises to help you check that students are managing to follow your lessons. The exercises are specially designed to test their knowledge of the subject, and only to a lesser extent their language skills.
- The exercises cover the range of European key competences for lifelong learning.
- There are additional exercises in the Student Zone, many of which are designed to practise students’ listening and reading skills.
Audio CDs and other listening materials
- Our geography and history books for the first two years of ESO are accompanied by an audio CD. The CDs contain stories created by a professional story-teller, who has extensive experience of working in schools in England, as well as passages from our books read out loud in English.
- The CDs use stories and readings to help students with the pronunciation of sounds that are difficult for native Spanish speakers to master, as well as reinforcing the key subject vocabulary.
- For books without a CD, you can download listening materials in mp3 format from our Teachers’ Resources. These consist of passages from the books read out loud by a native speaker.
As simple as possible, but no simpler
The colourful style of the books does not mean that we avoid tackling difficult concepts. We believe that explaining things clearly and simply, and in a way that is visually appealing to children, helps students to grasp the subject. Nevertheless, some topics are more complex than others, and students need a full explanation in order to understand them. That’s why our motto is: “Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler”.