Review: Oxford Junior Workbooks
An oldie but goodie
The Oxford Junior Workbook series is a great homework resource for elementary school age children. There are ten workbooks in the series, from the introductory A and B, to the 1-8 of the main series. We have been using these for many years now, and find them extremely useful as supplementary homework for children (post-phonics, pre-intermediate).
The Good
- Price. The books are 735 yen before discounts, so one of the most economical workbooks around.
- Intuitive. Most of the exercises are fairly intuitive and require little explanation. Perfect for homework.
- Well designed. The books build up language and concepts slowly in a very learner-friendly way.
- Range of activities. There are a range of activities, from colouring to matching, writing, and drawing.
The Bad
- Dated. The books are showing their age in terms of design.
- Dated. Some of the language and content is archaic (ink blot?).
- Dated. Slightly sexist and non-PC at times.
Overall
Overall the Oxford Junior Workbook series is a great way to provide extra work outside of class that student enjoy and find useful. They can be used in lockstep by assigning specific pages as homework, or individually by allowing students to work at their own pace. The books are cheap enough that buying one or two each year shouldn’t break the bank.
Very much recommended.
New Posting Schedule for sendaiben.org
New Year, New Plans
Along with the new Reviews Page, I have decided to be more deliberate about reviewing materials and organizing the reviews into a useful resource.
From next week the blog will alternate between news and opinion pieces on Tuesdays and reviews on Fridays. Once I run out of things to review we’ll change things up again, but I don’t see that happening any time soon 😉
I hope you find the changes useful!
Micro or Macro Teaching?
Are you seeing the big picture?
Just as in economics, there seem to be two main approaches to education.
Micro teaching involves discrete items and lesson plans. Macro teaching, on the other hand, deals with skills, motivation, and long-term goals.
Clearly both are necessary, but it is easy for teachers to focus exclusively on micro education: after all, that is what they have control over and what students and administrators are likely to look at.
For the last couple of years, first with extensive reading and then with discussion courtesy of my collaborator Daniel E, I have been focusing on macro approaches. For certain contexts, particularly ones where students have already spent a lot of time focusing on discrete language, a focus on general language skills, independent study, input , and content works really well.
This year I will be making an effort to try something similar with students at Cambridge English.
The rumoured teacher handbook for teaching discussion classes is also becoming more real day by day. I’ll keep you posted.
Reviews page
New year, new features
Happy New Year!
The eagle-eyed among my visitors may have noticed the shiny new ‘pages’ menu in the top right-hand corner of the site. You’ll find all the reviews I have done gathered there, and I aim to add to them more regularly in 2014. I hope you find it useful.
Please feel free to add your comments or questions.