Google instant translation of paper text

This is just a prototype now, but I reckon we'll see fully functional apps for iphone and android within the year. Amazing stuff.


Google Translate Blog

Basically you take a photo of some text with your mobile phone, then it gets uploaded to the web and translated almost instantly. Good for menus, signs, instructions, etc.

Pratham Books (low cost readers from India)

I recently ordered the full range of English language readers from Pratham Books in India to review them for our school. They are an NPO that focuses on literacy in India, and aim to provide low-cost, attractive materials for children. Benefits include very cheap books and the knowledge that by purchasing their materials you are supporting their charitable activities.

Pratham Books currently publish 95 books in English. Purchasing the entire range was very reasonable (40 dollars for the books, and 50 dollars for shipping). Payment is unfortunately limited to bank transfer (no credit cards or paypal), which adds an additional expense. Still, the opportunity to buy books for around 100 yen is very attractive when buying multiple copies for class sets.

My first impressions were as follows:

1. There is a fairly strong Indian flavour to much of the series (character names, objects, illustrations, culture, slang), which is a plus for us as we hope our students will gain a more cosmopolitan outlook through studying English, but could be a drawback for schools looking for American or British English only.

2. Some of the books are pretty advanced and seem designed for native speakers of English, although the simpler ones are decodable, recycle language, and deal with simple concepts (ideal for our EFL students). The simpler ones are also cheaper.

3. The books are not organised into levels or series, so teachers or schools would have to organise them themselves to fit their program.

4. There are a range of topics, from folk stories to science to maths and conservation.

On the whole I like the series and can see myself using the lower end of the scale (the first 30 books or so) for decoding/reading practice for our elementary classes, and the rest as possible extensive reading materials for JHS and above. Despite the advanced English in some of the books, they are designed for children so the topics are not particularly difficult.

I am not sure if I can recommend the books wholeheartedly though. Limitations include a lack of control of vocabulary and grammar, little coherence between books, and occasional difficult or esoteric language. They would work well as supplementary materials for schools that already have a basic foundation of readers (for example, we have the full range of Jelly and Bean and the Oxford Reading Tree already), but not as the sole resource. Finally, ordering is not very convenient as Pratham Books do not accept credit cards or Paypal. Hopefully this capability will be implemented in the future, which will certainly boost their sales overseas (I have been informed that due to strict Indian financial regulation, it may be difficult for businesses in India to accept payment by credit card/Paypal).

However, the prices are excellent, and I can see potential for giving sets of these to students as part of a school welcome pack, for example.

If you are interested in the series, you can see the covers of all the books and get more information at the Pratham Books website.

SRA Reading Labs

I recently had the opportunity to try out an SRA Reading Lab for a couple of weeks (thank you, David from McGraw-Hill in Tokyo) and was very impressed with the material.

We tried Reading Lab 1a (there are three levels, as well as a developmental level below level one) with elementary, junior high school, senior high school, and adult students.

The kit consists of a teacher's manual, a student record book, a CD-ROM that allows you to do tests and record keeping on a computer, and twelve levels of 'power builders', short reading texts with comprehension questions. There are ten power builders at each level, and the first two levels have pictures and sentences instead of a reading passage.

Each power builder has an answer card so students can check their own, or alternatively they can do the questions on a computer, which has the advantage of recording the student's score for the teacher to check later.

The questions on each power builder consisted of comprehension questions and questions that help students deepen their knowledge of vocabulary and language (for example, at some levels the questions deal with prefixes and suffixes, and their meanings, or ask students to decide which particular meaning of a word is used in the passage). One of our students commented that this was very 'deep' learning, and I thought this was a good way to describe it: it is a far cry from the superficial comprehension questions students are used to.

Students could work on the power builders by themselves, and check their answers using the keys supplied, so it was easy to use the materials in mixed-ability classes: students work at their own pace and teachers only have to answer questions when students run into problems.

Our students all enjoyed the materials and commented favourably on them.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of things that may prevent me from using SRA Reading Labs at our school. The first reservation I had (and this is a minor one) is that at the lower levels some of the vocabulary used is not very frequent, and thus there is almost no chance of EFL learners knowing it. This makes for a considerable mismatch between the skills being practiced (phonics, decoding) and the knowledge necessary to be able to answer the question. Our students were able to decode the words, but had no idea what a 'rod' was, or that 'led' was the past tense of 'lead'. This is not the end of the world, and it could be argued that this provides an opportunity to learn this kind of vocabulary, but it was somewhat frustrating for our elementary school age students.

The real dealbreaker is the cost: 130,000+ yen per set, or over 1.5 million to get all of them. Much as I and my students enjoyed using the materials, I am not sure I can justify the cost. It is a real shame as the SRA Reading Labs were a great match with our current curriculum and aims, and they are very easy to use in class.

It seems from the websites that these materials are mainly used in public schools in the US, thus the relatively high prices, but I would have thought that the economies of scale would result in lower prices. Certainly the product cannot cost all that much to print, no matter how good the design values are (the boxes do look great, and students are attracted to them).

I am interested in whether other teachers are using SRA materials in Japan. I estimate that if the SRA Reading Labs cost half as much, they would sell a lot more than twice as many (although I don't know how many they sell now). We would certainly be interested in purchasing several.

If you are interested, please contact McGraw-Hill Japan and they may be able to provide you with a loan box so you can see for yourself. Alternatively, if you are currently using Reading Labs in Japan, please comment below.