"Beautifully designed with a colourful layout…
The Workbook is of great value in not just including more practice material
on the units covered in the Student's Book but also ending the unit with a
'reflective' section on language and culture. Inclusion of the self-evaluation
exercise is an innovation giving the learner responsibility for their learning,
thereby enhancing their self-esteem. There is also emphasis on the practice
of phonemic symbols for dictionary use. The Workbook allows the learners and
teachers freedom to use individual sections separately or along with the main
book.
Besides the rich and varied activities for language development, the main
strengths of these books seem to emanate from the authors' sensitivity to
multilingual learners with cross-cultural differences, from a variety of text
types covering a range of themes, and from the focus on enhancing learner
resources among other things. A special merit of these books, as I see it,
lies in not neglecting the areas where second/foreign learners need guidance
and practice - areas such as grammar, functional language, vocabulary, pronunciation,
stress and intonation. What enthused me especially about the books are an
exciting array of tasks for vocabulary development, not just isolated items
of lexis but language chunks, collocations and spoken and written variants
- an invaluable support for a second/foreign language teacher."
IATEFL Voices
“Just Right achieves a balance of recognisable, fairly traditional tasks
and materials with elements of newer approaches and methods…adopts an
integrated approach, with grammar, skills and lexical syllabuses very sensibly
combined into a twofold division of ‘skills’ and ‘language’
in each of the fourteen units of the Student’s Book. The four skills
are equally represented, but interestingly do not occur in the same order
in each unit, providing variety for the teacher and learner and a number of
different ways in which language is presented.
The Workbook is more of an extension of the Student’s Book than a series
of practice exercises and therefore very useful self-study material.
The Teacher’s Book is comprehensive and easy to follow…includes
frequent alternatives and options for both the experienced and inexperienced
teacher. Overall, an excellent set of materials, suitable for a wide range
of teaching and learning styles.”
IATEFL Issues
“Jeremy Harmer, a noted ELT author and trainer, has once again put his
language teaching experience and knowledge into print with the comprehensive
Just Right. This well-balanced integrated skills series is comprised of 14
engaging units that covers many popular student interests. Each unit focuses
on promoting English language skills. This includes grammar, vocabulary, functional
language, pronunciation, dictionary use and reading, writing, listening, and
speaking skills.
As with any learning, students need to be engaged and interested in the course
material. Recognizing this as well as the need for schema building, Harmer
provides multiple opportunities for students to activate their prior knowledge
while interacting with a diverse range of activities.”
Folio
"The topics are interesting and well presented and the range of tasks
is excellent. I found the writing sections in each unit to be particularly
useful.
The Reflections section at the end of each unit, designed to encourage students
to think about learning and language and become more autonomous learners is
both innovative and stimulating.
In conclusion, Just Right is an interesting, well-presented course designed
with clearly set out pedagogical and linguistic principles which I feel both
students and teachers would enjoy using."
SATEFL Newsletter
"...the more I looked at it, the more I wanted to use it...refreshing
to see a coursebook that recognises the need for the teacher to pick and choose
material and tasks from a book...The principles behind the book support this
and advocate a learner-based approach to teaching i.e. go with and react to
the student rather than letting the material dictate the learning route.
Overall, this course consists of a very solid coursebook, useful Workbook
and very helpful Teacher's Book. A coursebook has to be friendly for both
student and teacher and this is what comes through with "Just Right".
I would certainly like to use a "Just Right". I hope it gets the
exposure it deserves. Highly recommended."
http://developingteachers.com
"...a collection of materials written with the same teaching approach,
based on the same corpus which can be used as a straight classroom course
or moulded and adapted to suit the learners and the teacher.
The books are fun to use and easy to teach...It is a flexible cocktail of
grammar, language skills and lexical programme which will appeal to a wide
range of learner types.
The Just Right course: The audio recordings are authentic...The topics are
genuinely interesting.
The teacher's book offers excellent guidance and tips...an attractive layout
and interesting content...
…a brand new course package with hours of fun for a general English class."
English Teaching Matters
"Just the Job?
I really liked the look of Just Right from the moment I began browsing: it's
packed with useful tasks and deals with key areas that other such course books
only pay cursory attention to like pronunciation, writing and dictionary skills.
And they aren't just two-minute tasks, either; they're meaty exercises that
take students to the heart of matters like tone, stress, pitch and intonation.
Particulary strong...on functional language...things native users really say.
Replacing traditional reading comprehension are noticing activities; these
engage readers in text analysis as they count and then classify examples of
various tenses. There's a healthy emphasis on vocabulary teaching in terms
of chunks and multi-word units...
...several pages of tips in such areas as oral and written correction, training
successful learners and the role of the teacher...detailed notes for every
single activity in the student's edition...sprinkled around the teachers'
book are boxes offering alternatives, options and mild warnings...ideal for
new or fairly inexperienced teachers.
Taken as a whole it should be interesting watching the impact the Just Skills
and Just Right series has on best-selling ELT materials charts. My guess is
they could be inside the top ten within a year. Watch this space."
EL Gazette
"...does not rely on gimmicks to sell itself...line drawings being mainly
used to illustrate the texts...this will help to prevent the book from ageing
prematurely, unlike so many others that are firmly fixed in time by the styles
and fashions of their photographs.
The skills activities are generally good, providing interesting material and
I was pleased to see that writing gets a full role.
...for once pronunciation is given proper prominence in the course...comprehensive
look at this important area.
This approach does have the benefit of encouraging student autonomy, which
is to be applauded, especially at this level. This encouragement of learner
independence is also extended through the many excellent mini-sections on
dictionary work.
Overall this is a solid book with much to recommend it."
IH Journal of Education & Development