"You and Me"

Had anyone had any experience with the

My school used the books for a few years. We found they were useless for total beginners as each lesson introduced too many different grammatical features. Rather than learning naturally students were learning very little.

We found they were useful for students who had already studied in a fairly intensive environment in kindergarten (say 10-20 hours a week). The first semester of grade one we prepared students for reading with simple texts (one page one line kidn of books). Then we jumped into book 4 of You and Me.

I really don’t like the books very much except for the fact that later lessons have some really excellent topics. For kids who can handle the vocabulary they are great. My students were only in grade 4 but were learning about bankbooks, deposits, mummies, horizontal bars, and so on.

The CDROM’s are pretty good for the kids to use to review at home. Actually I was using them for a while to learn Chinese as they were bilingual. I wish they were a lower price though.

I’ve often thought to ask someone qualified (like Ironlady) what they think of using the lessons for supplementary reading in Chinese. Ever lesson in the series has a translation in the back of the book. This translation covers not only the dialogue but the vocabulary also. Of course the book is not set up for learning Chinese so you’re likely to get some grammar and expressions (even in the early lessons) that are too advanced for a beginner in Chinese. But for the most part you’re getting dialogues where the vocabulary and grammar is controlled. Each book has 10 lessons if I remember correctly and there are over thirty books in the series. That’s a lot of reading practise.

But as I said, I’d be interested in an informed opinion on the matter.

You and Me also has a magazine now that is based on the lessons. It comes out monthly and has an accompanying CDROM. I’m not sure if it’s the one that you can ask questions (you type) and Lucy (the AI figure) it speaks the answer out.

Overall, I’d give the series a thumbs down. Useful in parts, uneven as a whole.

Thank you for your thoughtful answer. Unfortunately, we invested in the whole program for our new and legal cram school. First, please don

The book I like to Use is SuperKids published by Longman or Pearsons.

It has a comprehensive structured curriculum. It’s great for young learners. There is also an introductory kindergarten program called SuperTots. The material is very teacher friendly, good themes, logical, helpful, and timely TPR activities a heavy bias toward listening and speakin in books one and two.

Books 3 and 4 are fine they attempt a little too heavy handedly to consolidate the grammar, although there is probably no harm done there.

If I had to be critical of this series, I would say reading and writing are not developed effectively through the series. These are fortunately two areas that are, at this level at least, fairly easy to supplement. Also I feel the text lacks an effective dialog section, but all up it’s pretty good.

What’s more a modified version of this text is very popular in Elementary schools. This series is called GO SuperKids and I think it has about 50% market share outside of Taipei City and probably a substantial share inside Taipei.

Fox,
Are you absolutely sure that SuperKids has a Book 4. I was only able to find the 3 books, which Is why I decided not to use it. There’s just not enough of it. Also as you said, not enough reading and writing.

Go Superkids is not so good. It’s designed for use in Secondary Schools, and is one of the few Government approved texts now that schools don’t all have to use the same book.

SuperTots is excellent for kindergarten (one of the best), but again there’s not really enough there for a 3 year kindy program. It would work for kindy classes with up to 5 English lessons a week, if properly supplemented with other material.

There’s a new one for elementary levels published by MacMillan, it just came out this year and is a series of 6 books. I’m trying to remember its name. Can’t think of it. I’ll try and remember later.

Brian

Go Superkids is not a secondary school text. It’s just a simplified version of Superkids with modifications for reading and writing. Go SuperTeens is for junior high.

Oops, my mistake. I meant Elementary schools. Go Superkids is an official textbook for use in public and private elementary schools.

The series by MacMillan that I said looks good for buxiban/elementary students is called ‘Seesaw’.

Brian

Ok, I need something in a hurry - A system that carries through from Kindergarten to Junior High or beyond.

Brian,

You said in another thread that Super Tots is great.
Is Super Kids really not that good?
How about Go Super Teens?

I am helping to write/edit the next generation of the You and Me series. Any sugesstions?

LOL!!!

SuperKids is fine. Much the same as Let’s Go. The problem is that there’s not enough there. If you were teaching kids 8 hours a week, or even 4, you’d be stretching it to make it last two years, and then there isn’t really anywhere to go. There don’t seem to be any decent longer programs except Let’s Go, but the prob with that is that the parents perceive Let’s Go as old and what everyone else is using. One you could try is See Saw, a new 6 book series by Macmillan. Just came out. If you did one book a semster it would be a three year program, but if you have a good intensive immersion program you’d have to bulk that out with some other materials I think.

Can’t really remember SuperTeens sorry.

Oh, and I did recommend SuperTots, but again there’s the proviso that it’s ‘thin’. A three year kindergarten series, but the utter maximum would be 1 class a day. Not ofr immersion classes.

Brian