Information collection & exchange

examinations? 
Nothing quite like the national examinations is found in the United States, but such examinations are 
quite common in other countries. They are usually set by the Ministry of Education, and they often 
determine the future educational opportunities which are open to your students. Chapter Eight tells you 
how to find out more about these examinations and how to help your students survive them. 
Following the eight chapters, there are three appendices which you can refer to as needed. The first 
appendix is a complete listing of all the textbooks and references that are cited in the manual. ICE 
publication numbers are given for those books which are available to you through Peace Corps Information 

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Collection and Exchange. The second appendix lists organizations and publications which are dedicated to 
the teaching of English as a foreign or second language. Finally there is an appendix which explains 
acronyms (like EFL and ESL) which are common in this field. 
Still another way to orient you to this manual is to relate the contents of the various chapters to the structure 
of your language courses. In the simplest terms, you can think of the courses which you teach as a process 
with a beginning, a middle, and an end. 
The beginning is the needs assessment and school syllabus. These set the long-range objectives for you 
to meet during the course as a whole. 
The middle is the part which you are most concerned with on a day-to-day basis. You need lesson plans to 
help you organize your class time in an efficient and purposeful way. In making your lesson plans you can 
draw on a variety of approaches to language teaching for ideas on techniques for presenting the materials 
and activities which compose the lessons. You can supplement the materials and activities which you find in 
your textbooks with selections from the chapters of this manual which discuss the language skills and