TKT Core Module 2: Lesson planning and use of resources for language teaching
Consulting reference resources to help in lesson preparation

reference

You are consulting one form of reference right now: a website designed for training teachers. There are, however, some other resources.

Key concepts in this guide

By the end of this guide, you should be able to understand and use these key concepts:

the range of resources
- grammars: prescriptive vs. descriptive, intended audience
- skills books
- charts etc.
- websites
- corpora
- reference books
- journals
- dictionaries
- coursebooks
- supplementary books
- people
purposes of reference materials matched to types

Look out for these words like this in the text.
There will be tests at the end of the guide for you to check that you understand the ideas.

In this guide, we will mostly consider planning for a single lesson but all the points apply also to a series of lessons.

The range of resources

Task 1: As a first exercise, can think of three sources of help and information that you can consult when preparing lessons?
Click here for some ideas when you have a list.

Grammar books either tell people what is right or wrong (they are prescriptive) or they tell you what people actually say (they are descriptive). There are three kinds. (There is a list of grammar references on this site.)
- grammars for learners: there is a simple grammar for learners on this site and others include, for example, Swan's excellent Practical English Usage and Murphy's English Grammar in Use. Remember, these grammars are written for learners, not teachers, so have to simplify in some areas.
- grammars for teachers: most of the guides in the in-service training section of this site are written with teachers in mind rather than learners and are a little more technical in places.
- reference grammars: these are written by and for more advanced students of grammar and include the incomparably inclusive and accurate Grammar of Contemporary English by Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik.
Books about skills of two kinds. (There is a list of these on this site.)
- books designed to explain skills to teachers
- books designed to practise skills in the classroom
Charts and posters. Many publishers produce these free (as advertising material) and it is quite easy to get hold of phonemic charts, lists of irregular verbs and so on.
Websites such as this one. Every effort is made to keep this site accurate and up to date. Not all site designers are quite so careful. On this site, there is a guide to how you know which websites to trust and which ones contain wrong information. You can open that guide in a new tab by clicking here.
Corpora. These are computer-based analyses of how the language is actually used in practice both in speaking and in writing. Many, such as the British National Corpus, form the basis for dictionaries and have a huge database to call on.
Other books of many kinds. There are many other books, not designed for teachers, which are also helpful including style guides, encyclopaedias and so on which are especially helpful for cultural issues. Wikipedia is a useful if sometimes unreliable source, too.
Journals. Some, such as Modern English Teacher, contain lesson ideas and practical help. Others, such as The English Language Teaching Journal are more academic (but still accessible).
Dictionaries of five sorts:
- mono-lingual dictionaries designed for native speakers such as the Chambers, Webster's and Oxford dictionaries. These tend to be more complicated but also more inclusive and accurate
- mono-lingual dictionaries designed for learners from elementary to advanced. These are accurate but do not always give enough information. These often contain helpful diagrams and pictures.
- translating dictionaries which will help with meaning but are less useful for examples (although many do well)
- electronic dictionaries (some are contained in smart phones). These give only one-to-one translations of words and are not so helpful with examples or idiomatic use. They are improving all the time.
- on-line dictionaries intended for general rather than learner-specific use. These often suffer from the same drawbacks as electronic dictionaries having few examples and not dealing well with idiomatic uses.
Coursebooks and their accompanying teacher's books
Supplementary materials often focusing on skills but also containing games or communicative activities
People:
- colleagues
- academic managers
- researchers and conference presenters (not always the same thing)

With such a range of possible sources of information, ignorance is a choice.

Purposes of reference materials

Just knowing about reference materials is not enough. We need also to know why we want to use them and what we hope to get out of them.

Task 2: Here are some common reasons for consulting reference resources.
What sorts of references and resources would you use for these reasons?
Think before you click on the .

Reason	Reference
I need to understand a difficult grammar point	This website! A proper grammar for teachers or a reference grammar A colleague or manager who is an expert Do not trust websites written by people who don't know very much about grammar. Unfortunately, there are lots of them. Click here for a guide.
I need to explain a difficult grammar point to my class	The teacher's book if the area is in your coursebook A grammar for learners My own understanding A colleague: How do *you* explain this?
I have not taught this subskill before	A reference book which focuses on the main skill (reading, writing, speaking or listening) A supplementary book or resource which covers the subskill (especially if it has a good teacher's book) A colleague who teaches the subskill regularly This site
I need to explain some lexis in the lesson accurately and quickly	A dictionary designed for native speakers so I get clear information A dictionary designed for learners at this level which will have a simple explanation and definition as well as a real example that I can use in class
I need to be sure I can pronounce all the language in my lesson accurately and give a good model	Check a learner's dictionary for the phonemic transcription Use a CD or website that is linked to the dictionary so I can hear the word Consult a specialised pronouncing dictionary on CD such the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary Go to Google and enter the word you want to hear plus 'define'. Then click on the speaker icon.
I need to understand a text and explain it to my students which has a cultural reference I don't follow	The web An encyclopaedia A native-speaker colleague
There's a good unit on an interesting topic but I'm not sure how to approach it	The teacher's book! A colleague who has used the same book Your Academic Manager
I need to improve my grammar and language knowledge	This site A grammar written for teachers not students Do a training course
I am teaching a class that is new to me with first languages I don't know anything about	This site A colleague who has taught learners like this A specialist text on language typology and comparison Search the web
I need some follow-up activities for this teaching unit	The teacher's book A colleague who has used the same unit and may have written something Search the web Search this site
How does this word collocate?	An online concordance programme such as the British National Corpus A good learner's dictionary Search for the word online putting it in inverted commas to get examples of its use

Self-test questions

Before you go on, make sure you can answer these questions. If you can't, go back to the sections which give you trouble.

Explain the difference between a prescriptive and a descriptive grammar book.
What are corpora?
Which people are the most helpful in terms of advice and ideas?

If you are happy with your progress, go on.

Tests and practice for TKT

Much of this guide has been a test of some sort so there's only one practice test to do.

Test 1

A matching task

... return to the Module 2 index:
or go on to the next guide which is to coursebook materials.