Evaluation of a Software Package

 

White smoke 2012 is one of ESL software available online. Its major function is to help language learners to foster their writing skills regarding with spelling and grammar. There are four features or function it provides: writer, translator, dictionary and templates. Each of which would benefit ESL learners to enhance their written English.

Writer, the foremost feature of this software, allows you evaluate why your grammar and spelling are incorrect. The way it works is by firstly writing on the page about anything. Then after clicking the check text  button, you will see on your writing,  a number of underlined words in different color, i.e green, red or blue, indicating that there are some grammatical mistakes or misspelling words that writers should consider.  Above the colored words or phrases, the right spelling will be given as well as the right tenses.  Not only providing with such correction, it will also gives the meaning of the words, their synonyms, and how to use the words in contexts. More interestingly, without having to rewrite the correction, your writing will be automatically “furnished” by clicking the apply changes button. In addition, by simply copying your essays from word processor and pasting them on the software page, you will be surprised at how fast it works in identifying the errors and in providing you the correct words spelling and grammatical issues.

Translator, the second facility of this software, is another exciting function. It works like google translator which allows you translate either words or sentences into a broad range of languages, i.e. from English text Indonesia or conversely. When online, the additional menu of this translating function, human translation button, will connect you to translation companies available in the internet.

The last is template which provides you with different types of writing models in general, medical, legal, and business. This will definitely put you at ease as you already have models to follow when writing, for example, business proposal.

Overall, this software would be a great help if optimally used for writing purposes although by using the free trial version only (www.whitesmoke.com). However, you need to purchase it for longer use.

Note. Clik http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5_L6DBxjDQ to see the demo.

 

Evaluation of a Textbook

Title                 :  Academic English Skills. Reading, Writing,

                           and  Study Skills 

Level                :  1. Student’s Book

Year                  : 2010

Pages                : 72

Edition              : New 

Author              : Richard Harrison

Series Editors    : Liz and John Soars

Publisher           : Oxford University Press (New York)

Evaluating and selecting a suitable textbook for certain courses is quite daunting for teachers (Hemmings & Battersby, 2006) in that it requires teachers’ creativity and other skills (Richards, 2001, p. 260). By applying the criteria proposed by Little John (1998), I found this textbook useful for an English for Academic Purposes (EAP), especially for higher education participants at the beginning level.

There are three main skills this textbook focuses on, namely, reading, writing and study skills. Not only allowing the students to develop their reading skills and strategies through scanning, skimming, and or predicting contents, it also, enables students to conduct research on the usefulness and the reliance of resources. Furthermore, it provides a variety of hand writing skills practices, i.e. making note, summarizing and reorganizing ideas.

With regard to writing skills development, the textbook provides chances for students to learn and practice writing topic sentences, supporting arguments, linking ideas, and using punctuation properly. It also allows students to write a range of texts, like description, formal letters and emails, and comparison as well as to summarize and to edit their own writing, i.e. grammatical mistakes. These would enable students to have a strong foundation in writing.

The author seems to have selected the topic by considering their relevance to higher students’ thinking framework. For instance, the topics of education, daily routines, technology and the rest, are common place. Not only enriching the students' knowledge, the topics would also stimulate the students to relate the topics with their own contexts, i.e. culture.

Each chapter is well structured in that it is started with reading, writing, vocabulary development, pronunciation and, lastly, review. It is easy to follow, even, by beginning teachers as it can be a guidance for teaching steps. The layout, i.e. fonts and combination of appropriate photos and pictures make this textbook eyes-friendly. More importantly, the book seems to be affordable. However, there is a copyright issue in multiplying any of the textbook parts.

Having considered those, this textbook would suit EAP classes.  However, adopting or adapting the textbook “by supplementing and replacing materials or personalizing drills to make them more personalized to students” (Baker, 2013) can be done if necessary.

References.

Baker, A. (2013). Lecture Notes. Selecting and Evaluating Materials. August 12, 2013. School of Education. UOW.

Hemmings, B. & Battersby, D. (1989). Textbooks Selection: Evaluative Criteria, Higher Education. Research & Development, 8:1, 69-78, DOI: 10.1080/0729436890080107. Routledge.

Littlejohn, A. (1998). The analysis of language teaching materials. In Tomlinson, B. (Ed.), Materials development in language teaching. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 149-190

Richards, J. (2001). Curriculum Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 251-285. (Chapter 8: The role and design of instructional materials)