Comments on: Fantastic Cambridge Sites!

By: Clarissa

Clarissa — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:32:36 +0000

Thanks for mentioning Readable Blog!

By: mrferlazzo

mrferlazzo — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 06:42:13 +0000

I definitely agree that the listening exercises are the most useful to students. Those are the ones I highlighted on my “Favorite Sites” section of my website. Between Interchange and Connect, there are quite a few “What Do You Hear” exercises. I think there are fewer on Touchstone. Your point is well-taken that one size does not fit all….

The best listening exercises I’ve seen from a textbook publisher are “Phrase Builder” and “Phrase Bank” from Oxford. You can find links to them on my Favorite Sites (if you don’t have them already):

http://www.bayworld.net/ferlazzo/englishthemes.html#fav

And thanks for commenting in my blog!

By: Marco Polo

Marco Polo — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 06:13:00 +0000

Yes, they look interesting. The “what do you see game” I tried showed parts of the body. I would have liked to see “foot” and “leg” both in there, as Japanese does not distinguish well between these two, similarly “toe” and “finger”. That’s what you get when a major publisher tries to cover all the bases (i.e. make a book that will sell equally well in any country).

I’m using Touchstone 2, and I was eager to try the support materials out, but am a little disappointed: there could be more listening and less reading. Online listening materials and quizzes are a real pain to create and upload so that would have been something very useful CUP could do. And Touchstone 2, Unit 2 “Interests” has an activity called “types of music”, but it’s just a game of hangman, only not as interesting.