6 Jun 2011, 12:28pm
curriculum EFL kids language courses Language learning online resources reviews school management self-study smart.fm technology vocabulary
by

10 comments

The Word Engine

I think Koichi at Tofugu sums it up much better than I could, but I was very disappointed to hear the news that smart.fm closed down at the end of March (in order to renege on their pledge to remain a free site).

We’ve now moved all our students onto The Word Engine, an alternative paid site with a lot of nifty features. They have a reasonable sub-2000 yen price point for yearly subscriptions.

What sold it for me was the solid research foundation, the pre-test (V-check) that allows students to skip words they already know, and the teacher management system (V-admin) that makes it easy to keep track of large numbers of students and see how (and how much!) they are doing.

The Word Engine is an online SRS (spaced repetition system) that approaches vocabulary learning based on time boxes.

Signing up for an account is painless and takes less than a minute. Users then take a V-check test, which determines roughly how many words they already know. This is very important, as it allows students to skip items they likely know already and start right away on meaningful practice (this was a big problem with smart.fm, as it forced students to either guess at their level or start from the beginning). Payment is also easy, either online or by ordering access cards directly from Lexxica. Teachers can track their students via a free V-admin account, that shows student progress alongside the total amount of time they have spent studying online. It’s a great tool, as it allows teachers to sort by different variables.

After a few weeks, I really like the system. By far the best part is that practice is pretty much effortless. There is no penalty for getting items wrong, unlike in smart.fm, where students occasionally got really frustrated at being unable to ‘clear’ items. In the Word Engine, there is no downside for getting items wrong: they are just quietly moved back into the first box. Practice is also quick, with each session taking only a couple of minutes at the most.

While I would like to see more visuals and example sentences (things I thought smart.fm did well), these are minor issues.

So far we have over 50 elementary (higher grades), junior high, senior high, university, and adult students on the system. Feedback from the students so far is pretty good and most students are keeping to their 30 minutes a week targets (our best student has completed 22 hours of study in just over a month, and the worst just under 10 minutes, but most students are around the 2-3 hour mark).

If anyone else is using the Word Engine, I’d be really interested to hear how you are finding it.

5 Dec 2010, 1:19pm
Amazon.com curriculum EFL eikaiwa ES expectations JHS kids reviews teaching The Book Depository theory university
by

5 comments

Teach Like a Champion in Japan

Teach Like a Champion is a recent book by Doug Lemov. Despite the cheesy title, I found it interesting, inspiring, and useful, and heartily recommend it to any teacher facing classes (the techniques are probably less useful for teaching one on one).

The book was written from a US K-12 (kindergarten to twelfth grade) perspective, so is a perfect fit for teachers working in elementary or junior high schools. Not all of the techniques are suitable for high school or university students, but a lot of them are, particularly in Japan, so even teachers working at those levels should consider it.

Teach Like a Champion is based on a philosophy of efficiency (what works best for the most students in the least amount of time). It’s a mindset that I admire and have been trying to apply to my classes here for quite some time now. One of my favourite parts of the book is where Lemov talks about the opportunity cost of activities:

“(reading) is a high-quality activity (when done efficiently) that can be carried out in any classroom, at any time, and with limited additional preparation or expense required. You can always invest any stretch of time, short or long, in meaningful reading and reap a strong and predictable retun. Furthermore, if you know you could always be doing meaningful reading -in any class, at any time -you can examine your other investments of time critically: do they exceed the value of meaningful reading? Are they potentially higher return but riskier and therefore should be balanced with something more reliable?  As you ask these questions, you may well find that reading crowds out some of the other ways you invest your time.”

This mindset permeates the book, and makes it very persuasive. The idea of the opportunity cost of classroom activities is a simple one that I had never really thought about specifically. On reflection, my benchmark activity teaching English in Japan is extensive reading. Now, for me to do something else in class requires that it be more profitable than ER. Using this idea makes a huge difference to lesson planning.

I really like how Lemov brings a critical eye to classroom practice, making the overall tone of the book one of experimentation. The bulk of the book, however, is taken up by 49 very specific teaching techniques. Lemov claims that after observing hundreds of masterful teachers, he found that many of them were using the same strategies and activities, which he describes in Teach Like a Champion. There is also an online supplement with videos of the teachers in question using the techniques. In my opinion it is worth buying the book just to get access to this resource.

Teach Like a Champion is not perfect. It can feel a little cultish at times (all the techniques have names, which Lemov explains as being necessary in order to clearly convey what he is talking about, but names like “at bat” or “pepper” sometimes feel a bit silly), and the focus is very much on the US K-12 system. However, most of the techniques are universal, and I have successfully implemented them with both small group eikaiwa kids and university classes. All things considered, Teach Like a Champion is one of the best books on teaching I have read (I’ve actually read it twice, and am about to re-read it again to refresh everything), and a couple of friends who have also read it feel the same way.

Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be available through Amazon.co.jp, so I ended up buying the Kindle version from Amazon.com and reading it on my iPhone, but it’s worth getting a copy sent from the US. For a free postage and packing option, check out The Book Depository.

* Disclaimer: the links in this review are affiliate links. If you click on the links and then buy the product, Amazon or The Book Depository will pay me about 3% of the cover price. This comes out of their profits, it does not make the product more expensive for you than buying it normally. Think of it as a tip to this blog. Of course, if you prefer, you can go straight to their websites and search for the book yourself. I won’t hold it against you 😉

10 Sep 2009, 1:01pm
EFL eikaiwa JHS reviews SHS The Grammar Lab
by

1 comment

The Grammar Lab, by Kenna Bourke (OUP)

The Grammar Lab, by Kenna Bourke, published by Oxford University Press, is a grammar practice book aimed at children aged 9-12, with interesting content and exercises, appealing characters, and stunning illustrations and presentation.

It consists of three books written completely in English, covering basic grammar points: how to use nouns, verbs, prepositions, etc.

I have been using this series with Japanese junior and senior high school students. The grammar points are not new to them, but the books provide extensive practice and lots of examples of how to use language naturally. The fact that students already understand the content makes it easier for them to deal with the slightly difficult vocabulary and instructions.

I use The Grammar Lab as a homework supplement to regular classes, and find that with approximately 45 sections (37 units and 9 revision sections), one book is good for a year of classes. The production values on this series really are superb, and I really enjoy the illustrations and storylines/jokes. They do a great job of bringing grammar to life and making the drills interesting.

My only complaint with the series is with the Teacher’s Books (I bought the first one), which are only 40 pages long, 30 of which consist of answers to the questions in the Student’s Book, and the other 10 which consist mainly of introductions to the characters featured. This is really not worth 1,400 yen nor does it deserve to be called a teacher’s book. I was expecting a lot more in terms of supplementary activities, ideas for using the text, and advice, and was very disappointed with this.

The Student Books are currently available on Amazon Japan for just over 2,000 yen. This is slightly expensive for a homework/supplementary book, but for keen students who need extra practice at using junior high school grammar in practical ways, they are very helpful, and provide an easy way to incorporate grammar practice/drills into conversation classes.

15 Aug 2009, 2:00pm
EFL India Pratham Books readers Reading reviews teaching culture
by

leave a comment

Pratham Books (low cost readers from India)


I recently ordered the full range of English language readers from Pratham Books in India to review them for our school. They are an NPO that focuses on literacy in India, and aim to provide low-cost, attractive materials for children. Benefits include very cheap books and the knowledge that by purchasing their materials you are supporting their charitable activities.

Pratham Books currently publish 95 books in English. Purchasing the entire range was very reasonable (40 dollars for the books, and 50 dollars for shipping). Payment is unfortunately limited to bank transfer (no credit cards or paypal), which adds an additional expense. Still, the opportunity to buy books for around 100 yen is very attractive when buying multiple copies for class sets.
My first impressions were as follows:
1. There is a fairly strong Indian flavour to much of the series (character names, objects, illustrations, culture, slang), which is a plus for us as we hope our students will gain a more cosmopolitan outlook through studying English, but could be a drawback for schools looking for American or British English only.
2. Some of the books are pretty advanced and seem designed for native speakers of English, although the simpler ones are decodable, recycle language, and deal with simple concepts (ideal for our EFL students). The simpler ones are also cheaper.
3. The books are not organised into levels or series, so teachers or schools would have to organise them themselves to fit their program.
4. There are a range of topics, from folk stories to science to maths and conservation.
On the whole I like the series and can see myself using the lower end of the scale (the first 30 books or so) for decoding/reading practice for our elementary classes, and the rest as possible extensive reading materials for JHS and above. Despite the advanced English in some of the books, they are designed for children so the topics are not particularly difficult.
I am not sure if I can recommend the books wholeheartedly though. Limitations include a lack of control of vocabulary and grammar, little coherence between books, and occasional difficult or esoteric language. They would work well as supplementary materials for schools that already have a basic foundation of readers (for example, we have the full range of Jelly and Bean and the Oxford Reading Tree already), but not as the sole resource. Finally, ordering is not very convenient as Pratham Books do not accept credit cards or Paypal. Hopefully this capability will be implemented in the future, which will certainly boost their sales overseas (I have been informed that due to strict Indian financial regulation, it may be difficult for businesses in India to accept payment by credit card/Paypal).
However, the prices are excellent, and I can see potential for giving sets of these to students as part of a school welcome pack, for example.
If you are interested in the series, you can see the covers of all the books and get more information at the Pratham Books website.
13 Aug 2009, 7:35pm
EFL Reading reviews SRA Reading Labs
by

4 comments

SRA Reading Labs

I recently had the opportunity to try out an SRA Reading Lab for a couple of weeks (thank you, David from McGraw-Hill in Tokyo) and was very impressed with the material.

We tried Reading Lab 1a (there are three levels, as well as a developmental level below level one) with elementary, junior high school, senior high school, and adult students.
The kit consists of a teacher’s manual, a student record book, a CD-ROM that allows you to do tests and record keeping on a computer, and twelve levels of ‘power builders’, short reading texts with comprehension questions. There are ten power builders at each level, and the first two levels have pictures and sentences instead of a reading passage.
Each power builder has an answer card so students can check their own, or alternatively they can do the questions on a computer, which has the advantage of recording the student’s score for the teacher to check later.
The questions on each power builder consisted of comprehension questions and questions that help students deepen their knowledge of vocabulary and language (for example, at some levels the questions deal with prefixes and suffixes, and their meanings, or ask students to decide which particular meaning of a word is used in the passage). One of our students commented that this was very ‘deep’ learning, and I thought this was a good way to describe it: it is a far cry from the superficial comprehension questions students are used to.
Students could work on the power builders by themselves, and check their answers using the keys supplied, so it was easy to use the materials in mixed-ability classes: students work at their own pace and teachers only have to answer questions when students run into problems.
Our students all enjoyed the materials and commented favourably on them.
Unfortunately, there were a couple of things that may prevent me from using SRA Reading Labs at our school. The first reservation I had (and this is a minor one) is that at the lower levels some of the vocabulary used is not very frequent, and thus there is almost no chance of EFL learners knowing it. This makes for a considerable mismatch between the skills being practiced (phonics, decoding) and the knowledge necessary to be able to answer the question. Our students were able to decode the words, but had no idea what a ‘rod’ was, or that ‘led’ was the past tense of ‘lead’. This is not the end of the world, and it could be argued that this provides an opportunity to learn this kind of vocabulary, but it was somewhat frustrating for our elementary school age students.
The real dealbreaker is the cost: 130,000+ yen per set, or over 1.5 million to get all of them. Much as I and my students enjoyed using the materials, I am not sure I can justify the cost. It is a real shame as the SRA Reading Labs were a great match with our current curriculum and aims, and they are very easy to use in class.
It seems from the websites that these materials are mainly used in public schools in the US, thus the relatively high prices, but I would have thought that the economies of scale would result in lower prices. Certainly the product cannot cost all that much to print, no matter how good the design values are (the boxes do look great, and students are attracted to them).
I am interested in whether other teachers are using SRA materials in Japan. I estimate that if the SRA Reading Labs cost half as much, they would sell a lot more than twice as many (although I don’t know how many they sell now). We would certainly be interested in purchasing several.
If you are interested, please contact McGraw-Hill Japan and they may be able to provide you with a loan box so you can see for yourself. Alternatively, if you are currently using Reading Labs in Japan, please comment below.
 
←    →
 
← Newer Posts

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives