Criterion

Grade: 5/4/3/2/1

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

Originality

        3

This course book enables students to develop their listening and speaking skills in a uniquely creative way. It combines accessible topics with a variety of listening genres. In particular, it promotes the development of critical thinking skills through the contrasting of information provided across the separate listenings. Furthermore, the final speaking task provides the opportunity to utilize ideas developed throughout the Unit.

This multi-media learning resource further provides the student with the opportunity to access and annotate the course book material both on and offline, whilst also giving the students immediate access to the audio for each of the Unit exercises.

One of this course book’s many positive attributes is that it incorporates the development of skills alongside creating student awareness and recognition of academic functions, both at a macro and micro level, whilst providing a rationale for the same. In so doing, it accentuates the importance of: listening for structural markers, cues to distinguish between fact and opinion and identifying and discriminating between problems and solutions, as an example. It also uses examples of academic skills, within the tasks themselves, for instance, two example summaries are contrasted, as a means of assessing listening comprehension.

Provided within this course book are multiple opportunities for the student to both practise and develop their listening, speaking and critical thinking skills. In addition, students could further benefit from a range of academic skills-related extension activities, outside of the classroom.

Finally, the Study Skills section at the end of each Unit, provided by Stella Cottrell, also serves to focus the student regarding the study skills necessary to work autonomously, together with meeting academic requirements and expectations.

Practicality

         2

The Skillful Listening & Speaking Student’s Book 3 is accompanied by a Teacher’s Book (containing 2 class audio CDs) and a Digibook (available to both the teacher and student.)

• The Teacher’s Book is accompanied by online access to the Digibook. This is accessed through a unique code in the back of the Teacher’s book. Teacher registration lasts for 3 years!

• Students also have free access to the Skillful Listening & Speaking Digibook, accessed online. A unique code is provided in the back of every student’s book. Student registration lasts for 18 months.
• Registration for both the Teacher’s and Student’s Digibook is a straightforward and simple process.
• When registering for Digibook access, if you are previously registered for another title in the series, at any level, your registration can be amalgamated, so that with a single login you can gain access to all of your titles. (This is applicable to both teachers and students.)
• The Student’s Digibook contains exactly the same information as the hard copy enabling the student to use it in the classroom. The format is uncomplicated and easy to use. Additionally, the audio files are embedded for instant student access.
• The Customer Service Team at Macmillan Education are most helpful, in the event that login, or other difficulties are experienced. However, the time taken to resolve an issue could extend to 24hrs.
• This book has been classified as B2 within the CEFR (Common European Framework)

Presentation

         3

This Student’s book contains 10 Units.

• There are stimulating, colourful pictures on each of the pages. All of the information and tasks presented are clearly accessible.

• The topics used in the Skillful Listening & Speaking 3 Student’s Book, are parallel to the Skillful Reading & Writing 3 Student’s Book.
• Each Unit is divided into three succinct sections: Listening 1, Listening 2 and Speaking (Grammar, Speaking Skill, Pronunciation and the final Speaking Task.) There are also additional speaking and listening activities integrated throughout each of the units.
• Every Unit begins with a discussion to orientate students to the topic. This takes the form of three questions and is accompanied by a large colourful photograph. The aims for the Unit are communicated clearly and concisely, and displayed in a small box on the same page.
• There are two key listenings per Unit: A ‘Global’ listening, and a ‘Close’ listening. The Global listening is slightly shorter in length and orientates the student to the general issues relating to the topic, whilst the ‘Close’ listening provides an in-depth look at a more complex, topically-related issue. The ‘Close’ listening also provides opportunity for greater critical analysis. 
• Prior to the initial listening, there is a ‘Vocabulary preview’. This exercise acknowledges vocabulary to be used across both of the Unit’s listening tasks.
• Skills boxes are used to provide information about other listening-related skills, as well as pronunciation advice.
• Grammar boxes provide information on Form and Function.
• Academic key words, used in connection with the two key listenings in a Unit, are highlighted in a small shaded box.
• At the end of each Unit, an aspect relating to Study Skills is presented by Stella Cottrell. These may take the form of an information sheet or contain points for discussion. Examples of topics include: Identifying your current skills; Taking notes effectively; Memory thrives on organisation; Reviewing your notes; Independent study and, Leading a group.
• At the back of the Student’s Book there is a page displaying Functional Language which can be used with the discussion tasks and ‘Developing critical thinking’ activities.

The Teacher’s Book

• The Teacher’s Book contains a ‘visual walkthrough’ of both the Student’s Book and Digibook (for Teachers and Students).
• Exam tips, Extension Activities, notes on Cultural Awareness and ideas for extra research tasks, are provided throughout.
• The Teacher’s Book also contains structured, photocopiable feedback sheets for each Unit’s final speaking task.
• An Answer Key is provided in the Teacher’s Book.
• Audio scripts and CDs are also provided.

Overall rating

      3

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

Strengths:

Student’s Book

Accessibility is gained to the more complex topics through initial personalization of ideas, around the topic. This is particularly useful as the discipline-focused, topical information presented is most likely to be new information.

Skills boxes provide insight into, explanation and a rationale for specific listening and speaking skills. For example, ‘Listening for organisation’, ‘Listening to understand cause and effect relationships’, ‘Listening for problems and solutions’, ‘Listening to interpret the speaker’s attitude’; ‘Interrupting politely’, ‘Using intonation to express feelings and attitudes’ and ‘Making repairs’.  

Specific academic skill development needs are highlighted and reinforced through the listening comprehension tasks. For example, discriminating between summaries. In addition, attention is drawn to why listening for summaries is important.

A variety of mediums are used for the listening tasks, such as a news report, podcast, radio show, presentation and lecture. Predominantly, Listening 1 is one of the former, with Listening 2 being a lecture. The more familiar listening mediums used in Listening 1 may also serve to provide a sense of familiarity whilst listening to a less familiar/unfamiliar topic.

The grammar input is relevant and appropriate to academic-related discussion, such as seminars, and is reviewed and reinforced through the discussion tasks.

Teacher’s Book

Extension activities related to research and developing the use of the academic word list are promoted and suggested throughout the Teacher’s book.

The Student’s Digibook

The Student’s Digibook can be annotated, for classroom use. Additionally, annotations can be shared.

Using their Digibook, students can work offline, following their initial connection.

Extra activities are provided throughout the Digibook, in accordance with the exercises given. These can be accessed through an interactive icon. Alternatively, they can also be found in the Skillful Practice Area of the Digibook.

All audio recordings are embedded for instant access. As students do not have access to the CDs, this is particularly beneficial.

Extra listening activities are provided through videos (transcripts and tasks are available to the Teacher only, via the Teacher’s Digibook)

The Mark Book provides a visually clear and simple way of enabling the students to evaluate their progress across the 10 Units. It is presented in a table format which is broken down into each of the 7 Unit components, allowing the students to identify specific areas for improvement.

The Teacher’s Digibook:

Extra videos are provided on the Teacher’s Digibook, with worksheets and transcripts.

The Digibook could be used to set and mark homework.

The Mark Book enables the teacher to monitor the student’s progress.

Additional tests are provided, in both editable and non-editable formats. These can be used for either formative or summative purposes. They can also serve to act as placement tests.

WEAKNESSES

Student’s Book

Listening recordings 1 and 2 need to be taught in close proximity in order for the student to benefit fully from this material. As an extensive number of tasks can be involved in both the pre and post-listening activities, this is highly unlikely. Realistically, a Unit could potentially be taught across three lessons.

Having an extensive number of tasks, the overall potential benefits to the student can be substantially minimalized. On reaching the final discussion task, the momentum and interest stimulated regarding the topic can be lost.

The way in which the speaking and listening tasks have been integrated can be counter-productive to the promotion of either of the skills, as one can be interruptive of the other.

The inclusion of supplementary, associated reading material/tasks would be beneficial in supporting the topic discussion.

The Student’s Digibook

The time taken to resolve online difficulties may be excessive. Once contacted, an instant automatic reply is sent by Macmillan’s Customer Service team signifying a ticket number. However, the length of time then taken to resolve the difficulty may vary, from an hour to twenty four; that said they are very helpful.

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

Preparatory courses for academic study such as:

Foundation (Year 0) Pre-Undergraduate degree programmes

Preparatory academic English programmes for students seeking to improve their English language listening and speaking skills for either undergraduate or postgraduate study.

It is unlikely that this book would be suitable for Pre-sessional courses.

Other comments

If you are planning to use Skillful Listening and Speaking 3, careful consideration needs to be given to your students’ learning objectives and outcomes as well as curriculum restraints, in terms of time and assessment.

In terms of time, the pre and post-listening activities could be minimised and/or consolidated, in order to optimise upon the course book’s inherent value, which is, to listen to, analyse and critically compare, the content of the two main recordings, ultimately resulting in two discussion tasks on a related topic.

With regard to assessment, this book could lend itself well, and be exploited, to fulfil ‘project focused’ assessment criteria.

In either event, this course book could be utilized to promote independent learning through further extension activities. Students could be encouraged to carry out their own research, primary or secondary and produce presentations, projects and/or identify reading material to support the discussion activities.

Skillful Listening and Speaking 3, has the potential to be a very useful resource within the right educational context.