New Cutting Edge Elementary
Title New Cutting Edge Elementary Student’s Book
Edition 1st
Published 01/03/2007
Published by Pearson United Kingdom
Format Book with CD
Review of Textbook
New cutting edge elementary (Sarah Cunningham & Peter Moor,
2007) is a well developed and reliable teaching resource with a task-based
learning approach. The main objective of the book is to make language usage
more effective for students, as the publisher’s description “a particular
communication goal”. Generally focused on speaking, tasks are opportunities for
in-class communication which encourages fluency and confidence. “ The course is for
the young adults claimed by the back cover’ takes students from A1 to A2
level of the Common European Framework’ and ‘a comprehensive syllabus with thorough
grammar, vocabulary and skills work ‘. Illustrations and the design of the book
are quite suitable and very easily accessible by the target population. The
main idea and the text is simple to understand. Teacher can motivate students
with the self-study CD-ROMs which covers a wide range of useful vocabulary and grammar.
Additional element is a mini-dictionary inside every student’s book. The author
stresses ‘study, practice- sections combine study skills with consolidation to
encourage students to learn more effectively’, and it is proved by my inspection of all the
modules ranging from 0 to 15, sequencing
topics (what English do you know?, people and places, you and yours, everyday life,
loves and hates etc), each module contains a range of useful vocabulary in
common and real life situations and each modules’ exercise recalls the high
frequency phrases and pronunciation. The
physical layout is clear in just two columns and is very attractive as it
highlights items with different colors in student’s book and the work book is
presented in just black and white. Activities are designed in a balanced form, particularly
to learn grammar and vocabulary and are highly interactive __pair work, it also
encourages students to give their personal opinion and ideas. As the activities
are explained very clearly so it is easy to understand the structural relation
between the grammar items. By using the digital software with interactive
whiteboard student’s engagement can be raised to a higher level. This course
facilitates the teachers with its adaptability and flexibility as it allows the
teachers to edit, modify and eliminate the text according to the needs of the
students. The role of a text-book in a curriculum cannot be ignored completely
but it should be used judiciously as it should be used as a resource and a
guide but not the only resource.
EVALUATION OF CALL SOFTWARE (TENSE BUSTER)
EVALUATION OF
TENSE-BUSTER
Tense Buster is grammar
software developed for all students wishing to improve their English grammar. ”
Tense
Buster is very popular with students, attractive and easy to use.”
British Council Network News
It is developed for
the learners from elementary to advanced (five levels), and is an ideal self
access resource. The publisher’s claim that it is ‘effective, enjoyable, easy
to use’ is reasonable. At the elementary level it explains the basic grammar
elements then gradually level by level moves to the most complicated structures
of grammar. “Tense Buster is well thought-out, motivating and
systematic in its approach.”
IATEFL
Newsletter
Its functions are designed so simply that if a learner is
accessing it very first time he/she can use it without obstacles. Every unit includes
a randomized test. A number of high levels interactive activities are designed and
a good variety of media contents are also included to develop a close
understanding of grammar and it also provides assistance to the learners in the
following language areas: vocabulary, pronunciation, listening, reading and
study skills. Tense Buster is often defined as ‘a break through grammar barriers’.
The program generates reports and gives a detailed
feed-back to learner in order to understand their
mistakes.It uses a comparative approach to grammar,extensive audio__learner
listen both to model and correct answer,a recorder to record voices,
video-based pronunciation, learner development strands improve learner’s skills
and a progressive function to analyse their weaknesses.
Tense
Buster is a very useful and an intrinsic
program and it enables a learner to have a full command over grammar.
‘Tense Buster has been adopted by the British Council
worldwide, Ministries of Education in many countries, as well as thousands of
schools and colleges.’ This package is potentially has a controlled language,
good language learning skills and strategies quite suitable for the learner. The
strength of this software is its efficient use of student’s time. It quickly
points out learner’s mistakes. “I think it is fair to say that the prospect of
a grammar exercise seldom inspires students to think it could be a pleasurable
activity, but this software does raise the interest level for most users.”Stephanie
Thomas.
BBC Teaching English
REVIEW OF BBC teachingenglish.com
Name: Teaching English
Target Group: kids and teenagers
Date Visited: 25-08-2012
Summary:
This is a very useful site designed for the teachers to introduce them to the
different teaching techniques in order to teach English as well as grammar. The
main objective of the site is the teaching of English by providing guidance to
the teachers by different teaching materials, the information is presented in a
straight forward way without creating ambiguities and its quite appropriate not
only for the target population but also for all the people interested in
English learning and teaching. This site provides a number of useful teaching
resources such as lesson plan__ gives a series of activities to use in classroom
and also gives an account of teacher development materials and further explains
them with the video clips. A number of ELT publications in pdf to download, online teacher training
courses , a number of articles to help teacher think of the way they teach,
facility to browse the blogs, links to other sites and related materials such
as news are available in the site. The overall layout and the functionality is
good and very useful strategies and activities are built- in, a range of
board-games also available to download and print for the classroom to increase
student’s knowledge of grammar and phonetics.
HOW TO TEACH GRAMMAR
REVIEW OF VOYAGES IN ENGLISH
howtoteachgrammar.com
Name: How to Teach Grammar
Target Group: Learners of English
SUMMARY: This site provides a
very good combination of programs and activities for the teachers as well as
for the students. Main goal is to help in learning and teaching grammar. For
the teachers a good number of online resources are provided (e.g. Grammar tool,
how to teach grammar, lesson plan, professional development, test generator
etc) to plan their activities. A number of pdf exercises are available to
download and to get benefit of that. Video materials are also included in the
site to present the benefits of the provided activities to be implemented in
the class. Lesson formats are easy to use and the layout of site is simple and
attractive, the information is easily accessible. A number of comprehensive
writing lessons are provided to enhance instructions. For the students
different games and activities are designed to improve their skills and they
can also master their writing with the pdf assistance of Grammar & Mechanic
handbook, irregular verbs, graphic organizers etc. Writing prompt with a range
of genres of writing is provided for the help of students to overcome their
problems in writing. This site is linguistically competent and information
provided here is fresh and reliable because of the long serving history of this
link.
ESL PARTYLAND
REVIEW OF ESL
PARTYLAND.com
Name: ESL
Partyland
Target Group: ESL Teachers and
Students
SUMMARY: This site as clear
from its tittle is designed to facilitate teaching and learning for the ESL
teachers and students. The main goal is the teaching of English and grammar to
ESL students by using different strategies of teaching__ flash cards, ESL
worksheets and lessons for the adults and beginners. The teachers are
encouraged to plan their lesson by using films and videos, internet and music
to hold students’ interest, and also focus on all the four skills. This site is
very helpful in specific learning areas such as Business English, vocabulary, grammar,
idioms, phrasal verbs and the use of useful expressions of language in various situations,
all these areas are assisted by
different number of games and quizzes. There are a million of teaching ideas contained in this website which can be
used by the teachers to make the feedback of students more efficient. The site is up-to-date and the contents are interesting
and relevant and it use a lot multimedia files.
BRITISH COUNCIL LEARN ENGLISH
REVIEW OF BBC LEARN ENGLISH.com
Name: Learn English.com
SUMMARY: It is a very
beautifully designed website, by British Council, especially keeping in mind
the needs of English language learners. This is a comprehensive site containing
highly attractive material drawing the interest of all__ kids, adult and
advance learners. There are number of audio and video materials concerning to
grammar and vocabulary allowing learners to listen, watch and learn. A range of
interesting and exciting fun materials are also provided to incredibly enhance
young learner’s efficiency in learning a language. Contents are quite relevant
and the layout is simple and good, grammatically consistent, easy to use, and
reliable as this is the link of British Council. Provide limited assistance to
students of IELTS, fun and interesting games__ listen jokes, business magazines
allow you to reach your professional aspirations by improving your skills, you
can learn grammar and vocabulary through explanations.
BUSY TEACHERS
Review
of Busyteachers.com
Name: busy
teachers
Target Population:
ESL Teachers
SUMMARY: The main
purpose of designing this site is to provide an account of valuable activities
by using different teaching resources__ worksheets, ESL articles, phonic
chart-games, The layout is not simple
and the whole look and navigation is somehow complicated. Information available
here is reliable as it is the shared knowledge of teachers about lesson planning
and printable worksheets. The site has various quick links for learning
vocabulary, grammar, and the four skills. Contents are interesting, relevant
and accurate. Effects of multimedia are used successfully in the site. Also
teach the use of different tenses in English and pronunciation features in the
language.
GRAMMARLY.com
Review
of GRAMMARLY.com
Name: World’s Most Accurate
Grammar Checker
Target
Group:
English Learner
SUMMARY: It is a very versatile site especially
designed to remove mistakes in a text and to examine a text according to
grammatical rules. The physical layout is very simple and it is also easy to
use its functions and navigate through it. When a text is checked using
grammarly it defines each item in detail
by differentiating grammar, punctuation, style and word choice and also check a
text for plagiarism. One can improve the readability and meanings. As it is a
web-based application so its easily accessible everywhere. The display is clear
with an instant feedback. The grammar checker
is a comprehensive grammar editing tool that checks your text for the
proper use of more than 150 common and advanced grammar rules. The checker
can be set to analyze the grammar of General, Business, and Academic,
Technical, Creative, or Casual writing genres.
