Introduction
The title and focus of this round of workshops was a direct result of a consultation process that took place after the last round of workshops in February/March this year. The topic reflected the needs and wants of teachers across the VTTN network.
The desire to continue working directly with upper secondary school textbooks, rather than looking at more abstract aspects of teaching, was obvious. Practicality was once again at the centre of this workshop - this is, after all, the VTTN way.
This round of workshops built on the previous two rounds ("Effective Use of Upper Secondary Text Books" and "Designing and Using Lesson Plans") by again looking at the textbooks, but with the focus narrowed onto individual exercises. Vietnamese co-ordinators and co-trainers ran all the workshops with support from a British Council trainer.

'Adapting textbook exercises from English/Tieng Anh 10, 11 and 12'
What the participants and co-trainers said........

'The aim of the workshop was practical and it was successful after three days. All the participants discussed the problems they face when using textbook exercises and they themselves found the solutions to the problems. They tried to adapt the textbook exercises by using a lot of communicative activities and they demonstrated them well in peer teaching. Although there are still some difficulties in using a communicative approach in teaching, I believe that all of us can do it - it will be the foundation for teaching English effectively in the future.'
Than Trong My Phuong
VTTN co-trainer
Nguyen Van Troi Upper Secondary School,
Nha Trang

'When I get back to my hool for the new year, I will tell my colleagues ut my experiences at this workshop - how to link a lesson together, how to make lessons moreinteresting. I specially got a lot of good ideas for teaching further practice.'
Nguyen Thi Thu Huong,
Khai Tri Upper Secondary School,
Danang

'My school is a very long way from Hue city - about 60km away, in the countryside. Some of the textbook exercises are very difficult for my students and sometimes, they can't understand them at all. Now, I will have many useful and practical ways to adapt these exercises.'
Nguyen Thi Kim Chi,
Tam Giang Upper Secondary School,
Hue

What was produced during the workshops?
On the first morning of the workshops, participants discussed the problems of using existing textbook activities and exercises and thought about possible solutions.

Sharing experiences
Exchanging ideas
Finding solutions

Identifying and addressing problems in textbooks
The following useful handout was produced after discussions in the Nghe An workshop. Do you recognise these problems? Do you have any other solutions?

During the first morning, participants also considered 'Communicative Activities' - what a communicative activity is, and examples that could be used in the Vietnamese teaching context.
When adapting activities, participants in Thai Nguyen referred to the following checklist:

A checklist for communicative activities

When you are creating a new exercise/activity for your student, this checklist may be useful.

Is your activity….
. Student – centred
- are you making the students do the hard work instead of you?

. Motivating
- are your students going to enjoy doing this activity?

. Practical
- can you use this activity with a large class and together with your textbooks?

Is there….
. An information gap
- does one student have information that another student needs in order to complete the task?

. A needs communicate
- is it possible for the students to complete the task without communicating (e.g by reading)? If yes, can you change it?

. A result/goal
- does the activity have a concrete result (i.e something for the students to aim for)?

Is the activity….
. A real-life activity….
- can the students take what they learn from the activity into the real world?

In Hue, participants brainstormed different kinds of communicative activities that could be added to the existing textbook exercises. This is the 'mind map' that they produced. Are these activities in your teaching 'repertoire'? If not, why not try them with a class and see what happens?

Adapting speaking excercises

In the next three sessions, participants worked together to come up with ideas for adapting speaking, vocabulary and grammar exercises from the textbooks. The following pages contain a selection of their work and ideas, including checklists and lesson ideas.
Many of the activities and ideas can be adapted for use with different materials or classes - so a lesson from Tieng Anh is still relevant to a teacher who uses English and vice-versa. Have a look and see if you could apply the ideas to your textbooks!
(For more ideas look at issues 1 and 2 of the VTTN Newsletter or contact Brian Stott at Bristish Council)

Getting students to speak in big classes is difficult enough, but when the material is not designed for this purpose, these difficulties can be even worse. In order to make our teaching more efficient, we need to give students as much opportunity as possible to speak - in pairs, groups or in a whole class situation. Hopefully, the following will help you to help your students with this most important language skill. They are not always complete lessons, but sometimes short ideas to increase student participation.

Checklist
In Thanh Hoa, participants referred to the following list of…
… ‘Steps for Teaching speaking’
- Generate interest in the topic
- Introduce the ‘stimulus’ (e.g. picture, problem, situation, topic, list of items…)
- Make sure students understand the task and goal of the activity
- Make sure students understand the process (do they speak? Do they write and then speak? Is there a time limit?…)
- Give students thinking/preparation time
- Elicit an example, model the activity, get students to desmmonstrate
- Sutdent DO the activity
- Give/ take feedback on content/performance
- Give feedback on language

Adapting vocabulary exercises

In the first afternoon session participants discussed what they considered important when adapting vocabulary exercises.

Checking list
VTTN participants from Nghe An drew up the following list:
- What is the purpose of the exercise? Is it a pre-reading task or vocabulary review?
- How much time is allocated to the exercises - 20 or 40 minutes?
- At which stages are there to the exercise used in class-beginning, middle, end?
- How many stages are there to the exercise?
- What happens after the activity? Is there a following up activity?
- Set the context - what is the situation?
- Think of difference techniques that could be used and decide on the most suitable:
. Mime, actions, gestures
. Realia
. Drawings, pictures, photos
. Matching words and definition
. Word groups - synonyms, antonyms etc
. Translation
. Labelling a diagram
- Give the students an opportunity to practice - use controlled and freer activities
- Think about the interaction that takes place - is it teachers focused or student focused?
- Think about the language you will use
- Prepare clear instructions for every stage
- Think about the materials you will need - does anything need to be prepared before the lesson - pictures, photos, real objects etc.

Adapting grammar exercises

Checklist
This handout was used by participants in Thanh Hoa as a guide when adapting grammar exercises.
'Steps for Teaching Grammar using the PPP model!'

Start with the communicative function of the language (when, where, how is it used in real life?). Think of a context to show this to the students. Use this as the basis for your lesson.
Presentation
- Create a context (use situations, pictures, mime…)
- Elicit model sentences
- Present the language point (by explaining, using time-lines, concept questions…)
- Check understanding
- Focus on form
- Focus on pronunciation
Practice
- Controlled practice activities (gapfills, sentence completion, substitution drills…)
Production
- Communicative activities (info, gap, guessing games, exchanging personal info…)

Note: Presentation activities are often rather teacher centred. Practice activities start to involve the student more. The Production stage is where you can give all your students the chance to communicate in English. These could be student centred.

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