ELT in Brazil

A couple days ago I posted a list of three books you had to have/read for DELTA and the response on social media has been nothing short of incandescent. For that reason, and to make sure I do justice to the books my peers have mentioned, here comes a list of three more books you will definitely need for your DELTA.

Sound Foundations (Underhill, 2005)

With no intention whatsoever to offend any of my most religious readers, Sound Foundations is basically the bible of pronunciation teaching in ELT. This brilliant book by Underhill takes the reader through the exploration of sounds from a physical perspective and aims to raise the reader’s awareness of their own vocal-sound-making apparatus. Divided into two main sections Discovery toolkit and Classroom toolkit, this book is a must both for DELTA and for a more aware and capable pronunciation practitioner and trainer. You will be using this book in M1 and M2 quite frequently. On a personal note, this was the book that made me fall in love with pronunciation and the reason why I have /ˈtiːtʃər/ tattooed on my arm.

About Language (Thornbury, 2016)

About language is more of a course than it is a book. Thornbury organizes this course into 30 units plus an introductory, diagnostic unit. Each of these 30 units has around 10 tasks aimed at developing teachers’ language awareness. The brilliance of the book, in my opinion, lies in the second half of the book where Thornbury answers and comments on every single task in his book. You will mostly be using this book as a source for M2 and going through all units before taking M1 will certainly make a huge difference in your score.

Teaching EFL Writing (Villas Boas, 2017)

Villas Boas’ book on writing is an absolute must for M2 if you choose to teach a lesson on writing. This book was my main source for the background essay and lesson plan for my externally assessed lesson and I can confidently say it was a very successful one. The book covers what Villas Boas describes as a process-genre approach to writing, all stages involved in this approach, peer feedback, teacher feedback, scoring rubrics and more. This book can provide the basis for a very solid and effective writing program for your school or an air-tight framework to help your learners become better writers.

You can get these books by clicking here (Underhill), here (Thornbury), and here (Villas Boas).

P.S. Thaís Olivieri and I are offering a writing course in March which is heavily based on Villas Boas’ process-genre approach. Make sure you register if you want to develop your writing skills when it comes to writing blog posts, cover letters, proposals for teachers’ conferences, and articles for teachers’ magazines.