Textbook Evaluation #1

Rubric for Expresate!

Features an organization based on relevant and interesting topics and cultural contexts
- 2
Provides activities in which students talk to each other, share information and opinions,
ask personalized questions, and express feelings and ideas. - 2
Provides task in which students must negotiate meaning with one another. - 1
Provides authentic oral input (audiotapes, videotapes, CD-OM programs) that has
engaging content and tasks - 2
Provides authentic printed texts (newspaper/magazine articles, ads,poems,short
stories) that have engaging content and tasks - 2
Suggests strategies for comprehending and interpreting oral and written texts. - 3
Includes pre-listening/pre-viewing/pre-reading tasks - 3
Includes tasks in which students speak and write to an audience of listeners/readers
(i.e., process-oriented tasks) - 2
Provides contextualized and meaningful activities that relate to a larger communicative
goal - 1
Presents clear, concise, grammar explanations that are necessary for communication -
1
Presents vocabulary thematically, in context, and with the use of visual and authentic
realia. - 2
Provides for integrated practice of the three modes of communication - 2
Presents an accurate view of the cultures in which the target language is spoken. - 3
Includes visuals for presenting vocabulary and illustrating authentic cultural aspects
(overhead transparencies, visuals, PPT slides, realia). -2
Provides opportunities for students to discover and explore the products of the culture
and their relationship to cultural perspectives. - 3
Provides opportunities for students to discover and explore the practices of the culture
and their relationship to cultural perspectives. - 3
Provides opportunities for students to use the target language to learn about other
subject areas - 1
Engages students in using the TLto acquire new information on topics of interest. - 2
Provides opportunities for students to compare key features of the native and target
languages in interesting ways. - 1
Provides opportunities for students to compare products, practices, and perspectives of
the native culture and target cultures in interesting ways. - 2
Includes activities in which students use the TL with peers in other communities and
target language regions (e-mail, WWW, interactive video, field trips) - 1
Provides opportunities for students to select authentic texts to explore for enjoyment
and learning. - 1
Provides contextualized, performance based achievement tests with scoring rubrics. - 2
Suggests strategies for assessing student progress in attaining standards - 2
Integrates technology effectively into instruction (audiotapes, videotapes, interactive
video, CD-ROM, WWW, e-mail, online chat rooms) - 1
I have been using this textbook for a little over three years now. What enjoy
about this book is its focus toward communicative ability. It offers many
opportunities for students to use the different modes. However, these activities
are typically a little misguided and uninteresting to students. So, they require
more work from the teacher to modify the activities to be more relevant and to
actually to achieve a communicative goal. It also has very good intentions for the
use of technology with the textbook and its ancillary materials, though they fall
short due to lack of clear organization on the textbooks website and the lack clear
explanation for how the textbook and its materials actually coordinate
together. Overall I enjoy the book series, I just wish it was more relevant and was
designed with a little more thought in mind to creating the activities.