Materials And Resources

Evaluating the unit from the course book Gude, Kathe and Michael Duckworth 2002. "Matrix Pre-Intermediate Student's Book". Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nowadays, there are lots of materials and resources for English classes that enhance the possibility to acquire the language in a fun and effective way. However, not all them apply to the great variety of student needs. The mainreason in evaluating the unit “Off to see the world” from Matrix Pre-Intermediate Student's Book is to give students a complementary material to improve their language skills.


Choosing a valuable material is a challenge that can be very difficult to obtain if teachers are not clear about the objectives for evaluating materials for their students. According to this, it is important to keepin mind some important aspects involved in the learning process which deals with the learner and the educational environment. In this evaluation, I will determine the usefulness of the target unit with high school students from Chile.


First of all, the material ideally should follow the following categories.


1. The topic of the unit should be interesting to all the group class.The number of female students is almost the same as the male students so the topic should be of interest to both groups.

2. The texts should be interesting but at the same time containing appropriate vocabulary to the student’s level of English. It has to contain a certain amount of known vocabulary but also some new words they can work with.

3. The activities have to be clear enoughto be developed by students in a regular one hour and a half class.

4. The linguistic level should be appropriate enough to work with students from the last year of high school. The four aspects of learning a language should be covered. However, the class has difficulties in the speaking part due to the high number of students. For that reason, speaking activities should be of a short lengthin order to all students can participate.

5. The cognitive level must be challenge but at the same time comprehensible for all the students.

6. The design must call the learner’s attention but at the same time have a clear structure to follow.

According to these seven categories I will evaluate the unit “Off to see the world” thinking about the usefulness with high schoolstudents.


The topic of the unit seems to be very interesting to high school students. Most of the cities presented in the unit are familiar to them. Cities like London, Paris and Sidney are capitals of the most famous countries of the world. The first text on page 120 is about a very interesting way to know a city in which students can give their own opinions and tell the rest of theirpeers what they think about it. This unusual way for tourists should really call student’s attention and motivate them to read and follow the whole text. It also leads the opportunity to know new words like four-poster bed or broomsticks where they can use it afterwards. However it will be necessary to show some pictures or to explain some of the places of the capital of England like Piccadilly orWestminster. So the question when thinking about the topic would be Is travelling an interesting topic for students who have never been to these places? To answer this question it is necessary to look our student’s backgrounds and ages. Most of my students have heard about the places shown in the unit but they have never been to them. Fortunately, all them have access to internet and have watchedthese places on movies. I think the unit presents a great opportunity to show learners some new places and unusual situations from other cultures. It will really call my student’s attention as well as motivate them to follow the whole unit.


According to the texts presented in the unit, two questions should be made. Are the texts comprehensible enough? And do the texts contain known...