Spark 3 Based on Criteria Designed by Alan Cunningsworth jolanda gjergji

4.2.2 Listening materials and accompanying exercises
Listening tasks appeared in every unit of the textbooks and seemed to serve as starting points of the following sections which the targeted items in vocabulary made up the contents of the listening materials. The activities aim to pre-teach students new vocabulary that occurs in the listening materials. The listening activities are integrated into the section named “Skills” which has only two activities. These activities develop micro-skills such as listening for general understanding, listening for specific information and take the form of multiple choice questions, matching exercises, gap-fill, or True/False questions. Listening activities are also found in other sections: ‘Writing’, ‘Across the Curriculum’, which aim to develop micro-skills such as listening for general understanding and specific information.


4.2.3 Writing exercises
Each module, except from the introductory one, involves writing skills. A brief look at the Writing section shows that it normally begins with some preparation work in which students are required to work on models or generate ideas. Then, they are asked to complete the model in the textbook with the phrases provided. In the last activity students are asked to write a short essay, emails etc. The texts students are required to produce are mainly personal.
As for the topics and forms of writing, since the module 2 is related with natural phenomena, students are required to write an email about an accident or to describe a survival story to their friends. Module 3 it deals with experiences (sports, holidays), students are required to write a short article about a holiday (ex. 8 p.39) or an email from abroad (ex.4 p.43). To sum up, the textbook offers a great variety of writing exercises.


4.3 Integrated skills and communicative abilities
4.3.1 Activities for integrating language skills
In the section named ‘Everyday English’, dialogues practice integrated skills: reading and speaking. Most dialogues in which different communicative functions are present tend to be normal exchanges (between 5-7 turns). The expressions in the dialogues occur in everyday situations.