What your opinion about Headway course ?
I need to know your opinion because I might use it soon …
Hi,
any course or book has good and bad sides , headway is pretty old one, at least I met the book with tapes something like ten years ago.
Maybe better to use one of interactive courses which had
changed a lot recently in learning process I mean way of learning the foreign language.
regards
Jan
another handsome …and strong ,well Hercules was strong wasn’t he?
Hi jan
thank you , but did you mean that Headway course is like traditional way for learning English ?
please …any advice
As for me,Hercules,Headway is not bad.I was pleased with it while studying at the university.But I advise you to use different sources of learning English.There is a great many of books,CDs that for sure will help you!
Hi Hercules,
You might like to read the material I’ve written for the site covering many grammar points. You’ll find all the articles under
Let me know what you think.
Alan
Hercules, I haven’t used the Headway course for a long time, but I thought it was very good. I especially liked it because it included many accents of English from all over the English-speaking world. This is important, because if you only understand one accent – for example Oxford British or General American – you won’t understand most native English speakers. This is one big reason why Headway and The New Cambridge English Course are good.
The original Headway series is a bit old by now, since it came out in the early 1990s. However, it has been replaced by New Headway from 2003 and American Headway from 2001. Even if you use the old Headway books, I don’t think they’re so old that you will have any problems.
Hi,
Jamie wrote:
I’m intrigued at the use of the description Oxford British, which I thought went out with the ark.
Alan
Amazing !!! really amazing !!
I think with all these texts and all of that exercises , I have to be good at English .
Thank you Alan
I don’t know about Jamie, but I must be of the ark generation, since I’ve always used (and heard!) the term ‘Oxford English’. 
Edit: who decided to call it ‘received pronunciation’ (whatever it means), anyway? :roll:
Hi Conchita,
What I meant was that the expression Oxford English is rather old hat now. If you walk down the streets of Oxford city today, you’ll hear every accent under the sun. The days of the Oxford accent were more in the years between the two wars when a certain type went to university there but all that changed in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Of course the real Oxford accent is what the locals use in the county of Oxfordshire, which is a warm rural one spoken with care and calmness.
Alan
Hi Alan
My experience in Germany tells me that many Germans had it pounded into their heads (at school) that the one and only “correct English” was “Oxford English”. I suspect this is still being done today to a certain extent.
Just out of curiosity … how many distinct “versions” of English would you say there are in the UK?
Amy
Hi Amy,
I really couldn’t say, I’m afraid. The grumpy old man gene in me wants to say that Estuary English is taking over but standard English is spoken by BBC radio newsreaders and they maintain a subtle hint of the local area in the regional broadcasts.
Incidentally some 20 or so years back a woman reader by the name of Susan Rae who has a very pleasing Scottish accent caused a minor sensation by reading the main national news. There was a lot of tut-tutting and she disappeared from the airwaves. I am pleased to say she’s now back on a regular basis. Things change slowly. An even bigger upheaval took place in the 1960’s when a man with a very slight West Indian accent read the main national news. The other newsreaders including the head of that section led a protest and he was removed from duties. I’ve checked online but he seems to have sunk without trace. Sad business
Alan
Hi Alan
I once had neighbors from the UK. The wife was from Ireland and I never had any trouble understanding her. Her husband was from London. I had to pay much closer attention to him since understanding him was sometimes a bit of a challenge for me.
That’s an interesting story about Susan Rae. I did a Google search and found that there’s even a Wikipedia entry about her. 
I like the Scottish accent, too, but there again, I sometimes have to listen more carefully than usual.
Thanks for the info.
Amy
Hi together!
While I had English lessons at public school we had a techer whose favourite idiom had been -driving his hand from the bottom of his face all over his nose -pulling up the snot in his nose- into his greyed fully hair to babble anthing that sounded like “Eeeeeeeeedinnburgher Inglish! Eeeeexammmin”. As he always seemed to be a bit old fashioned even at the 1970?s I liked to know more about the Oxford English which had went out with the ark, like Alan mentioned. :? :lol:
Michael
I’m sure you’re not exactly intrigued, but simply wish to lord more intimate familiarity of UK dialects over yours truly.
When I was writing the post, I originally wrote “RP”, which is what I would normally write. However, knowing that in many non-English-speaking countries (and even some English-speaking ones) the average person walking down the street does not understand the terms “Received Pronunciation” or “RP”, I chose the term “Oxford”, which is understood almost everywhere to mean that accent that we call RP. (Besides, the term “Received Pronunciation” is rather opaque and nonsensical on its face. It sounds like someone went to communion and suddenly began talking like the queen.)
Since I knew I was writing the post for someone who did not have the august credentials as a dialectologist that you do, I felt I had to make an accommodation.
And expecting people around the world to know how people talk in Oxford now is something like expecting them to understand the latest street slang in Los Angeles. It’s a type of ethnocentric provincialism, which I’m sure many would accuse me of as well.
:lol:
Your image is priceless, Jamie! I had missed this post, but luckily bumped into it just now. Being as I am so fond of analogies, I really like this one!
I agree with Conchita, Jamie. Your analogy is quite good.
And what I can also imagine (unfortunately) some of my more stubborn students saying is:
“What?!? ‘Clothes’ has only one syllable??? That must be American English. I received the pronunciation for ‘clothes’ in two syllables.”
Oh, the joys of received (or should I say “perceived”) pronunciation! :lol: 
Amy
That’s because every Central European knows that the longer something is – the more syllables and the more words it has – the more “correct” it is. And since British English is correct, that means more syllables means more “British”.
Hi Basel,
I’m Marah from Syria
(kteer mabsota l2yt fi 7ada men Syria metli)
In my mind Headway is quite good course. At least I like it. I learn English, using this course (New Headway 3rd edition, Pre-Intermediate level).
The student’s book is interesing, full of coloured pictures and it’s include modern description of stories, things, films.
And including audio-course help me with prononciation. However, I think also, that Headway is hide some grammar rules…
For example, in Headway Elementary says, that word “Yet” uses only in negative sentences or questions. For positive sentences we must use word “just”.
But in some literature I found “Yet” in positive sentence and I don’t know how translate it…