This courseware is intended for secondary school and adult learners. The aim of this courseware is to build English learners' confidence in speaking the language by developing their communicative ability in real-life situations.

Toward that end, we have adopted the communicative language teaching approach for our courseware. This approach highlights learners' communicative competence, which is the learners' ability to efficiently express what they mean in the target language (English) and successfully achieve communications in real-life situations.

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING – THE RATIONALE

We use language for communication. But language is more than just a tool for communication – it has implicit social and cultural elements. Merely learning the linguistic aspects of English cannot successfully engage learners in real-life communications. Learners also need to acquire pragmatic competence – the capacity to incorporate cultural knowledge into language use and choose appropriate language in different sociocultural contexts. The communicative language teaching approach that we employ focuses on teaching learners to efficiently use English in different contexts. By involving learners in a wide range of meaningful interactive situations, we can expect them to be progressively fluent when communicating in English.

One other purpose of this communicative approach is to create more comprehensible input. Through meaningful communication, learners have opportunities to notice the linguistic gap between their own first language and English. It is a long-held belief that this kind of gap-noticing can help learners know what is still needed to be learned, and this benefits the learning process.

MAKING THE MOST OF THE COURSEWARE

• Developing your confidence
  
  You build your confidence through practice. But what should you practice? To improve your listening and speaking skills, you should practice listening and speaking, obviously. Use the situational contexts in each lesson for your practice. Listen to the dialogue or narration, and try to understand what is being said. Then, see the text-only version, and read along with the character in the dialogue or the narrator. Keep doing this until you can read smoothly without hesitating.
  
  Another section that you can use to develop your confidence is the Speaking Section. Here, you can record your voice and compare it with the pre-recorded reference. The audio tool that we provide is ideal for you to practise your pronunciation, enunciation, modulation, intonation etc.
  
  Some activities in the Speaking Section involve a dialogue between you and a virtual character. These activities provide the setting for you to interact with another ‘person'. Use these activities as listening and speaking exercises for developing your listening and speaking skills.
   
• Increasing your vocabulary 
  
  Every lesson will have words that may be new to you. These words are listed in the Vocabulary Section. The meanings of these words are given both in English and in Malay. Listen to how the words are pronounced, and use the words in different contexts. Know what part of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) each word is. If the word is a noun, change it to an adjective (for example), and use it in its new form in a sentence. If it is a verb, use it in different tenses in sentences.
  
  Many words have multiple meanings. The definitions given in the Vocabulary Section are the meanings of the words in the context of the respective lesson. You are encouraged to use the dictionary for other possible meanings.
   
• Understanding grammar
  
  Grammar is the whole system and structure of a language. Grammar states the rules of how that language should be spoken (or written). Each lesson has a section on grammar; however, the content varies in the number of grammar items introduced. To help you understand the grammar items introduced, practice exercises are provided for you to do. Understanding grammar helps you to write and speak English correctly.

Lesson Contents:

CD1

1. At a motivation camp
2. Introducing oneself
3. Calling a wrong number
4. Calling the office
5. Where is the washroom
6. Asking for information about a friend
7. Buying a T-shirt
8. Buying shoes
9. Complaining about a messy room
10. Asking to skip tuition
11. About Razak
12. Visiting grandparents in the village
13. A visit to Penang

CD2

1. Introducing a friend
2. Meeting a client
3. Transferring a telephone call
4. Leaving a voice message
5. Where is the Customer Service Centre
6. Buying clothes with gift vouchers
7. Exchanging a T-shirt for another
8. Complaining of poor service
9. Asking for a refund
10. My mother
11. My school
12. Stamp-collecting
13. The elephant

CD3

1. Meeting a coursemate
2. Transferring a telephone call
3. Apologising for being late
4. Calling to apologize
5. A farewell party
6. What shall we order
7. Where is the post office
8. At a fish market
9. Mother complaining about her son
10. Where is my fridge

CD4

1. At a conference
2. Asking for directions to the staff room
3. Asking for the location of an office
4. Giving advice to a friend
5. At the food stall
6. Complaining about slow bus service
7. Calling to apply for emergency leave
8. Reporting loss of credit card
9. Offering a free membership to a club
10. Farewell to a teacher going on retirement

CD5

1. A new colleague
2. The new roommate
3. Invite for Hari Raya open house
4. How do we get there
5. Meeting a friend on the street
6. Dengue fatalities reduced
7. The new English teacher
8. Invite for wedding ceremony
9. Invitation to an engagement party
10. Buy clothes