Open Minds : Exploring Global Issues Through Reading and Discussion

Open Minds is a classroom textbook for students of English as a second or foreign language. It is designed to help them become better readers and speakers of English. The book is divided into units with different topics. The topics have been chosen to help students become more aware of current social and environmental issues. Reading and thinking about such topics as nutrition, homosexuality, ecology, and poverty acts as a powerful stimulus to discussion. Each unit consists of three parts: two short readings followed by a set of fluency activities.
This text is also a workbook designed to give students the maximum amount of practice in using the English language. It is expected that students will write in the book, providing a record of their progress. It is self-explanatory and includes a key at the end of each unit, making it viable for self-study. The book includes prereading warm-up tasks, maps and photos to provide paralinguistic support, and tasks designed to teach learners to read English in the same way as native speakers by raising their awareness of reading strategies. Fluency activities help students assimilate their new skills with old knowledge and include debates and research.
Open Minds offers integrated practice to develop reading and oral fluency skills and to increase learners' awareness of both language and the sociocultural context within which English and their native tongues are used. It can help learners to find their own voice in English by helping them evaluate texts in English and to discuss them in terms of their own values. This combination of cognitive and affective tasks and activities is designed to promote language acquisition and to raise the students' awareness of themselves as members of both a language community and of a larger society.
Open Minds is designed for intermediate and advanced ESL/EFL students and should be suitable for teenagers and adults.