face2face Pre-intermediate Student's Book with DVD-ROM Paperback – Student Edition, 23 Feb. 2012

ok

the book is ok, but the DVD does not work at all, my colleague bought the same edition and her DVD does not work either, I am not happy about and I am going to contact Cambridge University Press to find out why...

A really good book for studying English.

very good condition

Great book at a great price!

Really good to learn

so easy to follow but effective

The Face2face series is generally good, but this Intermediate coursebook has got a number of problems. Firstly, the topics are greatly superficial: social media (stop please!), street food (again), strange-but-true banalities, knick-knacks to get rid of and so forth. Now, Chris Redston is an experienced teacher; he should know that English classes are occasions for students to talk and discuss about topics they can't deal with outside of the class. Adults tend to have a lot to say, but choosing interesting and original topics is at the root of interesting lessons. With such poor ingredients, at time there's really little to talk about. Secondly, there's too much vocabulary and very little recycling. Whatever word we come across when we study a foreign language, we need to use it again and again in order to memorise its meaning and putting it into the right context; with this book, instead, learners feel overwhelmed with words and end up forgetting the absolute majority of them. What is more, most of the words used are definitely not very common in real life: how often do you talk about 'ways to be lucky' at dinner with your friends? In addition, the language summary at the end is really functional for teachers but students practically ignore it; whatever is relegated at the back of a book is forgotten. There should be a reason for learners to use it, and actually there isn't any (at least, nobody cares of it). Finally, most of the communicative activities are rather mechanical, students feel rather bored. Chris, listen to me: write it again, insert some real English (for example, dialogues from a famous film), write about what learners love: wonderful TV series, great graphic novels, classics of rock and pop, theatre, pictures and paintings, real heroes and criminals, the greatest footballers of all time and their achievements. We've all had enough of global warming, Facebook and superstitions.