Making the Most of Multimedia Tools

Focus on Grammar, Intermediate Level

Focus on Grammar is one of several software products produced by Exceller Software as a result of a partnership with Addison-Wesley Longman. Exceller has brought out software versions of the Longman English-language teaching materials, and Focus on Grammar is one more of these adapted titles for use on a computer.

Focus on Grammar is aptly named. It is billed as being part of the "Longman Grammar Series," and its aim is to provide instruction and practice in several aspects of English Grammar while also offering some practice in listening comprehension. Focus on Grammar intermediate level features a menu of 38 grammar units distributed over eight main parts of grammar such as tenses, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, gerunds and infinitives.

When a user selects one of the 38 units, a screen opens up offering the user five categories of Activities: Discover the Grammar; Practice; Read; Listen and Write. This provides a comprehensive guide to the grammar difficulties that a learner is likely to encounter.

The Discover the Grammar section always has Recognize and Identify activities, the first of which presents four sentences in illustration, while the Identify activity presents passages in which the user is also asked to pick out examples of the grammar point at issue.

The Practice sections for each unit have five or six exercises. Some of the exercises are simple cloze-type exercises with multiple choice answers; others require filling in the correct forms of word in a context while others require responses based on brief dialogs or some other information. The Read section always has Comprehension, Cloze and Unscramble activities based on a single reading passage, the first of which includes sentence completion exercises based on the reading, while the latter includes a sentence in a passage that must be put into the correct order by dragging each word to a box.

The Listen section has Focus, Recall, Guided Dictation and Dictation activities. I was impressed by the high quality of the audio on the Focus activity while the Recall section also presents a listening passage, and the user is asked to pick out statements that are true based on the content of the passage. Guided Dictation is a cloze-type exercise in which the user hears a sentence that he or she also sees written down minus some words which must be typed into the boxes.

The Write sections offers the user the opportunity to write short composition or essays. Topics are suggested based on the particular point covered in the lesson, and sometimes specific words are listed that can be used in writing.

At the end of each main part, there is also a Review Test. Many of the Review Tests have two sections. In the first, a sentence is given with a blank and the correct answer must be chosen from four alternatives. The items if the second are constructed like some TOEFL questions, a point emphasized on the box containing Focus on Grammar; that is a sentence is presented with parts underlined and under these an A, B, C, or D to label the error that the user must identify.

As if the information in all the grammar units was not enough, the program also includes a component called Grammar Notes, accessible by clicking a button while in a grammar unit. This gives short lessons on the grammar topic in question. There are also Grammar Charts, also available by clicking on a button, which feature pop-up menus offering, for example, the forms of a verb in a certain tense for questions, negative sentences, short answers, etc. And there is also an appendix listing several additional topics such as "Common Verbs Followed by the gerund," "Spelling rules for the comparative and superlative Adjectives" and "Pronunciation Rules for the Simple past tense of regular Verbs."

Focus on Grammar also has a comprehensive on-line user's manual which is necessary since a printed version is not included (there is only a thin instruction book that describes how to get the software loaded and started). The program is set up to run off the CD instead of having to copy many files onto the hard disk. Of course this means a fairly fast CD-ROM drive is a necessity to make use of this program. I had only one difficulty with the technical aspects of the software; to use the program you need to open a "workbook," or a file for storing your work.