Published Textbooks & Materials

Textbooks

Harsch, K., Lange, E., Millet, S., Blackwell, A., Kusuya, B., and Murphey, T. (1996). Impact Words & Phrases. Hong Kong: Longman/Lingual House.

This book actually had several independent authors, each creating different units, coordinated by the series editor, Michael Rost. There were two things about writing this book that appealed to me. One was to present conversational vocabulary items for typical topics of conversation (although I would have preferred it if they had been presented contextually). The other was to have activities that give learners a chance to work with the vocabulary in ways that help personalize it.

 

Harsch, K. and Wolfe-Quintero, K. (2001). Impact Listening 3. Hong Kong: Pearson Education.

I got a lot of pleasure out of creating this textbook (although it was a lot of hard work, as well). We had several goals for this book, most of which we feel we accomlished. The vocabulary is presented in context, and students are asked to identify words or phrases they don't know well. We really made an effort to make the content meaningful for students, by thinking about what kinds of real uses for the language they might have (for example, instead of just talking about how many members are in their families, our Unit 3 is all about complaining about the people you live with).
Another aspect of this book I really like is how we started with content and later found the form that was evident. I wrote many of the conversations for the "Listening Task" and "Real World Listening" sections, oblivious to any potential grammatical points to teach. Later, Kate would analyze them and find recurring itmes to use in the "Language Awareness" section. Finally, I also really enjoyed created our "Interaction Links", and feel this section provides an excellent opportunity to extend the topic in a fun way.

 

Harsch, K. and Wolfe-Quintero, K. (2007). Impact Listening 3 (2nd edition). Hong Kong: Pearson Education.

This book is now in its second edition, due to the success of the first edition. Several of the passages were changed for the new edition, and the interaction links were changed to more of a focus on practicing conversation rather than games or other activities that focus on the theme.

 

Day, R. and Harsch, K. (2008). Cover to Cover 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

This book was a by-product of the yet to be completed academic reading book with Day and Ono. It was fun to dig up information on a variety of topics that students would enjoy, such as the inventor of karaoke, or the Concert for Bangladesh.

One of the aims of this book is to provide learners with strategies for developing fluency as well as developing more traditional comprehension skills for reading. Additionally, each unit has an excerpt from a graded reader, with a focus on encouraging extensive reading (one of Richard's areas of expertise.)

 

Day, R., Ono, L. & Harsch, K. (in progress). Reading Strategies for Academic Success

 

Other Published Teaching Materials

Bray, E. and Harsch, K. (1996). In D. Gardner and L. Miller (eds.), Tasks for Independent Language Learning. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

"Opinions and support" (pp. 45-46)
"Requests and reasons" (pp. 47-48)

Harsch, K. (1993). In D. Tatsuki, B. Evans, T. Kirchner, D. Schmitt, N. Schmitt, C. Smith, and K. Schaefer (eds.), Grammar Consciousness Raising Tasks: Temple University Japan Studies in Applied Linguistics, X(2).

"Are we bored or are we boring? -ing versus -ed participles" (pp. 80-82)
"Quantifiers" (pp. 22-24)

Harsch, K. (1994). In K.M. Bailey and L. Savage (eds.), New Ways in Teaching Speaking. Alexandria, VA: TESOL (continued from previous page)

"Cassette DJs" (p. 73)
"First steps and side-stepping" (pp. 13-14)
"Negotiating meaning through dictation" (pp. 41-43)
"Paraphrasing races" (pp. 97-98)
"Round table discussions" (pp. 44-45)
"Talking to yourself" (pp. 11-12)

Harsch, K. (1994). In I.S.P. Nation (ed.), New Ways in Teaching Vocabulary. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

"If you know what it means, prove it" (p. 178)
"In other words (a paraphrasing game)" (pp. 203-204)
"Vocabulary enrichment through word association" (pp. 128-129)

Harsch, K. (1995). In D. Nunan and L. Miller (eds.), New Ways in Teaching Listening. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

"Culture cards" (pp. 72-73)
"Linking races" (p. 136)

Harsch, K. (1996). In D. Gardner and L. Miller (eds.), Tasks for Independent Language Learning. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

"Directions from memory" (pp. 81-82)
"Introducing topics naturally" (pp. 111-113)
"Using more descriptive words" (pp. 57-58)

Harsch, K. and Smith, R. (1994). "English baseball." In K.M. Bailey and L. Savage (eds.), New Ways in Teaching Speaking (pp. 94-96). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.