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Review - Ready for IELTS

Title: Ready for IELTS

Publisher: Macmillan

Author: Sam McCarter

Reviewer: Debbie Mann, Coordinator of In-sessional Courses, INTO Newcastle

Overall rating: 

Criterion

Grade: 5/4/3/2/1

Comments (5 being the highest grade and 1 the lowest)

Originality 

         5

For many international students, preparing for IELTS, is just that! There can often be an over-emphasis on preparing for an exam, and achieving the required score, at the neglect of skill and language development. Students will often simply keep testing themselves, in the hope of improvement! They will continually keep taking IELTS practice tests and often fail to recognize and/or appreciate the language and skill development needed to achieve their desired outcome. Ready for IELTS provides potential candidates with this balance! It promotes language and skill development and competence as well as training and preparation for the exam.  Provision has been made for students to learn, develop and progress through a systematic step by step approach whilst enabling them to self-evaluate their progress through multiple means, including practice tests.

 

Ready for IELTS does much more than teach to (a) test!

 

Ultimately, as the student progresses through the course book, they are equipped to develop their language and skill competence, through a gradual and accumulative process while the nature of the IELTS examination tasks unfold and opportunities are provided for them to self-evaluate their progress.

 

 

Practicality /

Functionality

        5

SB & TB

 

(SB) User-friendly, facilitates independent learning and self-evaluation.

(TB) User-friendly, informative, supportive, comprehensive.  

The Teacher’s Book

‘Ready for IELTS’ provides a comprehensive set of materials for student preparation. The Teacher’s Book has been very well composed with answers clearly defined and easily recognisable. The Content overview at the beginning of each Unit references the IELTS exam-related activities and each skill is further referenced to the part/section of the IELTS exam. Suggestions and advice accompany each of the exercises. Bountiful, photocopiable, supplementary materials provide a means for both formative (p.133) and summative (p.177) assessments. These would include: Unit reviews; 5 additional Progress tests at 3-unit intervals and a final practice IELTS test. Furthermore, there are photocopiable exercises for each Unit. There is a balance within these exercises between skill and language development. (Eg p.139)

The Student’s Book

Sample writing answers are provided within the answer key, together with an Examiner’s comment and possible score, enabling the students to both self-assess their performance and self-evaluate their progression whilst also providing a model for learning. (Eg p.245) The course book is punctuated, every 3 units, with a ‘Ready for’ unit. (Eg p.16) Thus steadily building the student’s confidence with escalatory effect. There is one ‘Ready for’ unit for each of the skills.

The CD Rom provides the student with two practice IELTS tests. Learning through the use of these tests is encouraged through the opportunity to use them through a ‘practice mode’. This mode enables the listening file to be paused and/or stopped.

The Workbook provides task types which mirror those used in the course book for each of the skill modules and so provides extension and revision of the same.

Components

 

The Course Book (with CD Rom) also contains Unit Word Lists, a Grammar reference section, Listening transcripts and Answer Key.

Teacher’s Book

Class audio CDs and a Work Book with audio CDs (editions available with and without answer key)

Presentation

         5

Colourful, spacious, categorised and accessible material.

 

Overall rating

      5

 

What outstanding strengths/ weaknesses do you feel this title possesses?

This material is inspirational, motivational, experiential, in terms of practice tests and potentially transformational, with regard to student learning and language development!  

 

For the teacher, ‘Ready for IELTS’…

 

Enables and facilitates effective planning (including time and resource management) through concise, clearly defined, well organised and overall, highly accessible information.

 

Provides coherency of topic across exam parts and task types per Unit, thus sustaining momentum.

 

Promotes Teachers’ knowledge and understanding of the IELTS examination through explanations and exposure to examination structure, task type and outcome expectancy. (Eg p.66, 177, 71)

 

Facilitates the assessment and evaluation process (formative and summative) through extensive provision of opportunity to both preview and practise IELTS tasks and review student performance.

 

 

For the student, ‘Ready for IELTS’…

 

Engages and stimulates interest through the use of contemporary, relevant and inspiring topics, such as: Thrill Seekers, Money and Happiness, Travelling Around the World and Global Problems and Opportunities.

 

Supports language development, including an emphasis upon word building (eg p.24); a common difficulty amongst international students and often one they fail to recognise and therefore, one that can be commonly overlooked to the detriment of language development and student progression. There are also topic-based word lists for each Unit. (Eg p.211)

 

Develops student confidence and competence with compounding effect through regular reviewing and recycling of language and test items.

 

Enhances examination performance through the insertion of information boxes such as, ‘How to go about it’, ‘What to expect in the exam’, and ‘Don’t forget’ which illustrate: test technique (Eg p.20), task type and time allowance (Eg p.15) and reviewing and recycling of ‘helpful hints’ (Eg p.88) respectively.

 

Promotes realistic self-appraisal through simulated Examiner feedback to written model answers. (Eg p.248)

 

Provides extensive opportunities for task and test familiarisation and practice.  

 

Weakness There is no companion website or provision for on/off line learning as a complementary medium for learning.

 

On which courses do you envisage being able to use this material?

IELTS preparation courses with a focus on the Academic version of the examination.

It could also be used to prepare candidates for the Listening and Speaking modules of the General version of the examination. (The Reading and Writing modules are different for the IELTS General version.)

This material would be accessible to students who are classified on the CEFR (Common European Framework) as B2/C1.

Other comments

 

This course is much more than IELTS preparation! It develops skills and language competence, together with awareness and training for an IELTS examination. It provides everything needed for both teacher and student to achieve the purpose!

 

This is an inspiring, accessible, comprehensive course. It uses academically-toned content (in terms of language formality and complexity) and thoroughly prepares students for the IELTS Academic exam.  

 

This course could be taught by a less-experienced teacher and/ or someone new to teaching preparation for IELTS.

 

When developing student competence to prepare for an IELTS examination, (Academic Module) this course book should be given strong consideration! It’s a must!

© Copyright BEBC REVIEW PANEL 2016 – this review may be reproduced but only with this acknowledgement