Survival American English?

[tenneray]

I am the Senior Instructor at a school in Saudi Arabia. The Managing Director would like us to create and to offer a 'Survival' course in American English lasting between 10-20 hours. The students would be low-level, beginners or false beginners. The students will take the course prior to moving to the US.

We use the excellent Interchange/Passages series in our main(30-hour) courses. But this new course would be offered in addition to that.

Do you have any advice on how to proceed? I was thinking of a photocopiable resource on dining out, airport, post office, etc.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions you may have for us.

[Lucy]

Hi

I think your ideas are spot on. You could also include lessons on asking for and understanding directions. Filling in forms would also be useful.

I think they'll also need a lot of practice understanding "real English".

You could also take a look at this post:

http://www.tefl.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5125

Hope this helps.

Lucy