Teachers should resist external pressures, such as the British fifth-form examination, which dictate the content and teaching methods of their classes. Instead, teachers should endeavor to keep literature, language, and composition integrated; to emphasize class and group discussions; to find topics that interest pupils, not examiners; to establish a classroom community where pupils can use language to explore and share their own perceptions; to foster personal writing; and to treat impersonal writing as important but subordinate to personal writing. In teaching literature, they should encourage students to read quickly as many novels as possible and, then, through general discussions and close study of passages, to consider in detail the more interesting ones. In poetry study, the writing of student poems, group readings of poems, and the teacher's oral reading to evoke immediate student responses can be productive. Techniques helpful in drama study are improvisation and group study of a Shakespearean play. Grammar and vocabulary can be taught in conjunction with other activities. During the last weeks before the examination, the teacher can review and comment on questions and ideas that the students have already explored. (LH)