Longman New English Listening and Speaking (Student's Book. Volume 1)

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Features: Longman New English Listening and Speaking is a listening and speaking textbook specifically written for Asian English learners by Longman Publishing Company. Since its publication, it has quickly become a popular textbook for learning English listening and speaking in Asia. Due to its widespread popularity among learners, the textbook has been revised several times based on extensive feedback from students and teachers, making it even more perfect. The NewGoldEdition being introduced this time is the latest version of this series.
Target Audience: This textbook is primarily intended for adult learners, especially those who have studied some English but still struggle to communicate directly with foreigners in daily life or work. The series consists of two volumes, with the beginner level designed to help learners fluently communicate with foreigners on topics related to daily life or work after completing the course.
Writing Objectives: The primary objective of this textbook is to cultivate learners' English communicative competence. Communicative competence refers to the ability to flexibly use English based on communication contexts, purposes, and audiences. To this end, the textbook is developed based on the following philosophy: learners can only master English through meaningful communication; it emphasizes "learning by using" and highlights "learning for use."
Key Features:
1. Authentic, natural, and idiomatic learning materials. The textbook aims to teach learners how to use English fluently and correctly in social life, work, or leisure activities. It closely focuses on basic communicative functions and topics, providing authentic, natural, vivid, and practical oral materials. All the materials are real-life elements that learners are likely to use in communication, making them immediately applicable.
2. Close integration of communicative functions, topics, and language learning. Each unit of the textbook includes one or more key functions (e.g., self-introduction, asking personal information, greetings, expressing doubts, apologizing, etc.), teaching learners how to initiate, develop, and conclude conversations in daily life, as well as how to express their opinions. Functions and topics are closely linked, with grammar and vocabulary learning incorporated. Through repeated listening and speaking exercises, the textbook lays a solid foundation for learners to participate in various communicative activities.
3. Balanced focus on listening and speaking, integrating language learning with skill development. Effective communication requires understanding the other person first. The textbook starts with listening, designing various listening tasks to repeatedly train learners' listening comprehension skills, enabling them to communicate based on their understanding. Meaningful communication also requires sufficient language support. This textbook integrates language learning with the development of listening and speaking skills, incorporating language learning into conscious communication. It allows learners to experience and understand the expressive function of language structures in meaningful contexts, avoiding rote memorization and simple application.
4. Innovative and engaging activity design, with thought-provoking and challenging elements. The textbook places great emphasis on learners' personal experiences and journeys. Many activities, tasks, and exercises are based on learners' own experiences, making these oral practice activities highly thought-provoking and challenging. The goal is to provide learners with opportunities to use the language to narrate their experiences, express their thoughts and opinions, and truly internalize the English they learn.
5. Rich and practical content, closely related to daily life. Each unit covers a topic that is relevant to daily life, with content that is both rich and idiomatic. Additionally, numerous images, tables, and illustrations vividly present the language materials and communication scenarios, undoubtedly sparking learners' interest and greatly enhancing the textbook's practicality.
6. Well-organized unit structure, following a progressive learning principle. The textbook is designed to progress from listening to speaking. The duet-style conversational activities (Duet) are the core of the textbook, with "information gap" exercises interspersed and combined with personal experience activities to increase learner engagement and training effectiveness. The language review (LanguageCheck) module highlights key knowledge and structural practice. Ensemble activities are mostly fun tasks that emphasize learner interaction, though they include "operation" instructions, yet they remain challenging, aiming to build learners' confidence and improve fluency. Solo activities in each unit are application-based exercises that combine listening, reading, and writing, serving both as review and reinforcement while emphasizing the integration of learning and use.
Classroom Hours: Each volume of the textbook requires approximately 40–60 classroom hours. If there is more time available, the teacher's book and the dedicated learning website (www.efcafe.com) developed for this textbook provide additional learning materials for both teachers and learners to fully utilize.
Learning Suggestions: Being able to speak fluent, correct, and appropriate English is every learner's dream, but many English learners often suffer from "high expectations but low performance." The textbook may seem easy at first glance, but when it comes to speaking, they lack confidence. In reality, from the perspective of language itself, understanding something is still knowledge, while being able to use it is what forms a habit. To transform knowledge into habits and make it applicable, conscious and meaningful repeated training is required, along with full physical and mental engagement. The textbook is accompanied by CDs for in-class and out-of-class training. Repeatedly listening to and reciting these materials should not just aim for comprehension but should make the material flow effortlessly from memory. Only then can it be considered mastery through reuse, and language habits can gradually be formed. Since language is the carrier and externalization of thought, language expression is the expression of thought. A person's language habits should not be neglected. Therefore, speaking appropriately, expressing accurately and fluently should be the learners' highest goal. Wishing everyone an enjoyable learning experience!