now only appear in English. This is to help students get used to study using English language materials. How is vocabulary taught in Sunrise 12? There is strong emphasis on active (productive) vocabulary – words and phrases we want students to learn. Vocabulary is regularly practised, revised and recycled in the Activity Book units, the Revision units of the Student’s Book and in the Language Focus sections of the Activity Book. Functional English is also a key element in the course. This is language that will help students when using English in everyday situations. It is frequently picked out from Student’s Book dialogues and practised in the Activity Book and in the Reference Section of the Student’s Book. There is some extra lexis in the Literary Reader – which students do not need to learn and should not be tested on. Students are often able to understand these words in context for themselves. However, support for the Reader is offered in the Activity Book. The ‘To help you study’ sections in Language Focus and section 2 of the Reference Section suggest a number of ways students may generally increase their vocabulary and learn words more easily and more independently. How are writing skills developed in Sunrise 12? As this is the final year of school education, students have reached the point where they are expected to produce more extended writing than previously in the course. In Sunrise 12, writing skills continue to be developed thoroughly and systematically, following this general approach: • The structures and words that students need in their writing task at the end of a unit (the Unit Task) are introduced and practised in the first four lessons of each teaching unit. • Often during the first four lessons, for example in Unit 3 Lesson 3C, students do an oral or a practice activity which helps to prepare for and is recycled within the final Unit Task. • In Lesson 5D, students do activities which directly rehearse the content and language that students will use in the Unit Task. • Students are given comprehensive guidance in the instructions to the Unit Tasks which help them to make a plan for their writing. • Students working as a whole class, in groups or in pairs, discuss the contents and language to be used in their Unit Task – this adds detail to their plan.
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• When students are working on draft materials, Unit Task instructions often include a stage where fellow students comment on the work and suggest improvements to the draft. • Teaching procedures often suggest that students read each other’s completed drafts so as to advise on changes and improvements. The key aim of this procedure is that students learn to depend on themselves for planning, drafting and reviewing the content and language of their writing so they begin to develop their independence as learners. What about reading aloud in Sunrise 12? There are some conversations and dialogues we would like students to practise saying aloud. These aim at practising pronunciation and intonation. Teaching procedures also contain suggestions for when individual students read out instructions and sample language to the rest of the class. The reading passages, which are usually located in Lesson 3, are quite long. We suggest that these texts are used only for developing such reading skills as reading for gist and locating specific information and are not used for reading aloud. What about phonetic transcription in Sunrise 12? The phonetic symbols appear in the Alphabetical Wordlist and ‘To help you study’ sections and there is a phonetic alphabet in the Student’s Book Reference Section. By this stage, students should be able to use a dictionary independently, and learning how to pronounce the words in the dictionary is a great help in becoming an autonomous learner. How long does it take to cover a unit in Sunrise 12? This, of course, depends on the level of the students and a lot of other factors. We generally suggest that you spend about the following amount of time: • Lessons 1 and 2 in the Student’s Book require two contact hours, although some homework time will also be needed to complete the Activity Book tasks. Lessons 3 and 4 in the Student’s Book also require two contact hours, although some homework time will also be needed to complete the Activity Book tasks. • Lesson 5 and 6 integrate the Activity Book for the writing skills tasks and can be completed in two contact hours (depending on how much time you spend on the Unit Task), although some homework time will also be needed to complete the Activity Book tasks.
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