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Cutting Edge | |
Publisher: Longman
Authors: Sarah Cunningham, Peter Moor
168 pages
Price £13.70
ISBN: 0-582-38260-2
The Cutting Edge coursebooks have been in use since 1999. There are six books in the series, from Starters to Advanced. Although this edition has a wave on the cover, most of the others have pictures of mountains. (Symbolizing the difficulty of higher level English perhaps?) In this review we look at the pre-intermediate students book, but as many teachers know, the Cutting Edge series is a complete education package. As well as the student books there are videos, tapes, casettes and a website (www.longman.com/cuttingedge ). There is also a teacher's book which is spiral bound (for easier photocopying) with lesson plans at the front and photocopiable exercises at the back. The books also come with a mini-dictionary inside the back cover which contains vocabulary the students need for their course.
The books are arranged in modules - sixteen of them in the pre-intermediate book. Each module has a theme (houses, fame and fortune, appearances and so on). The modules are broken into smaller parts in the same way as the English course units here at English for Everybody. Just as we do on this site, the modules start with Grammar. They also have Vocabulary and Functions, but include a section on input skills (listening and reading). Output skills (speaking and writing) are divided into 'tasks' which often have a role play involved. This technique helps students to learn because they get used to the vocabulary and ideas in each module, and can concentrate on doing the exercises.
The exercises can take between 10 minutes and 45 minutes, or even longer with some of the role-plays. The pages of the books are very colourful. Exercises often have coloured backgrounds and there are colour photographs and drawings on almost every page. One complaint is that there are perhaps too many of these photographs. They do not add much educational value, though they probably add a lot to the price. Less pictures and more exercises would be better in our opinion.
Who is this book for? This book can be used for self-study, but there are many better books available for this. But as a class book, the Cutting Edge series is excellent. In fact if your school wanted to teach English using only one set of coursebooks, then it would be possible with Cutting Edge. While these books will do a good job of teaching a class general English, other books will be needed for exam classes.
Verdict: Everything a class needs for general English. At a price.
Assessment 9/10