Grant checklist article

http://www.scribd.com/doc/181934390/Grant-checklist-article-pptx

Reflection on tutorial task week 4 & 5

For this task, we are asked to choose one article regarding to the checklist for evaluating materials and the article title is “Choosing & Evaluating Textbooks” by Neville Grant. Generally, evaluation is a process of making judgment on something where in this case, we are asked to evaluate the textbook by using the Grants’ Checklist. As we are concerned, it is very important for us to do the evaluation because it can help us to choose a suitable material for the language learning. Thus, in order for us to know which books suit the students, we have to do the evaluation.

From the Grant article, there are three conditions that need to be taken into consideration before choosing a textbook. Those conditions are the suitability of the students, teacher & official public teaching (syllabuses or examinations). For the initial evaluation, we use ‘Catalyst Test’ that consists of 8 criteria that need to be evaluated which helps us to roughly determine whether it is suitable or not. We found that, this test is quite easy for the first step before going to a more in depth evaluation.

Next, for the detailed evaluation, we used questionnaire to compare two textbooks. We found that for this part, the questions are understandable and we did not encounter with any difficulties as we go through the evaluation process using this checklist. We do like this checklist because it is not complicated. However, when come to evaluate the textbook using this checklist, it is time consuming for us. Furthermore, for the in-use evaluation that is the final stage, it needs us to see whether it able to work in the classroom and applicable for the students or not. Here, we believe that from the previous stage results, it shows a good signs that the book that we evaluate is suitable.

To be honest, I really like this checklist because it is not that hard to comprehend and to be use.  Moreover, it touch an important aspect that need to be take into consideration before choosing a right textbook. Besides that, through this task I found out that evaluating process is very important for us to see whether the materials for the language learning fulfill the criteria or there is a lack on certain parts. Thus, I believe that this task gave me an exposure on the important aspects of evaluation that will help me to determine the suitability of the materials in the future later on.