Shape It!
Shape It!
With Shape It!, teens develop the confidence and competencies they need to pave their own path in an ever-evolving global landscape.
Help students take ownership of their learning with Shape It! The combination of learner training and collaborative projects enables students to develop their individual and collaborative skills and become more confident, independent learners. Shape It! ensures that students will be more motivated to take charge of their own learning, empowering them to shape their own futures. It features vibrant global topics, a focus on developing life competencies and learner autonomy and is supported by powerful digital tools and an abundant range of videos.
Authors
Claire Thacker, Stuart Cochrane, Samantha Lewis, Daniel Vincent
Key features
Practice your skills with the cutting-edge digital collaboration space and the mobile-friendly Practice Extra.
Extensive support for teachers of mixed ability classes includes a Teacher’s Resource Bank on Cambridge One.
The Learn to Learn feature of the course helps you to develop vital learning strategies and techniques to become an independent learner.
Get inspired through global, cross-curricular topics and over forty videos per level.
Develop skills to think creatively, analyse critically and communicate effectively using the Cambridge Life Competencies Framework.
Practice the skills required to be able to work effectively with others on collaborative projects.
What makes Shape It! special?
With Shape It!, everything you need is accessible through Cambridge One:
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- Presentation Plus - accessible online and offline.
- Teacher's Resource Bank with extensive extra grammar, skills and project worksheets, plus instant tests.
- Practice Extra - Learn and teach on the go, with mobile-friendly practice, games and gradebook.
- Collaboration Plus, where students can work together from home, and where teachers can set, track and assess students’ work.
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Shape It! has a global, cultural focus, with topics from traditional festivals to unique foods. The documentaries and the Around the World pages bring these global topics to life, introducing students to people and places from around the world, and asking questions which encourage students to think about the similarities and differences between their culture and other cultures.
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Project work is integrated into the course, enabling students to consolidate the language and skills they have developed and demonstrate their learning in a fun, personalised way. From designing their own food truck to presenting results of a class survey, these ready-made projects will help students gain valuable collaborative and creative skills.
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Shape It! includes four or five high-quality videos per unit designed to activate prior knowledge and provide a context for language learning.
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- Documentaries introduce every unit; a great way to get students thinking about the unit topic.
- Language in Action vlog-style videos make teaching grammar fun!
- Everyday English videos appear on the speaking pages with teenagers using authentic English from the speaking dialogue.
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Learn to Learn
The Learn to Learn feature of the course is designed to introduce students to vital learning strategies and techniques which will help them become more independent learners, all aligned to The Cambridge Life Competencies Framework.
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These competencies are developed in the Learn to Learn feature which appears throughout the unit and in the Learn to Learn page at the end of each unit.
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Background
When students reach Secondary school, they are expected to start taking more and more responsibility for their own learning, and once they reach school leaving age, they should have acquired the ability to learn independently.
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Yet teachers often find that their students do not know how to learn, and lack basic learning techniques like taking notes, categorising information, and assessing their strengths and weaknesses, particularly in the first year of Secondary school.
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To address this, the Learn to Learn feature appears throughout each unit, extended by a dedicated full-page at the end of every unit. The Learn to Learn sections cover three broad areas of learner training:
- practical skills for participating in learning.
- taking control of their own learning.
- reflecting on and evaluating own learning success.
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After each Learn to Learn tip, students practise them immediately in an activity. This helps students incorporate these techniques into their learning routine.
Project Work
Shape It! includes a CLIL or culture project for every unit of the Student’s Book. These are accompanied by a Project Book with step-by step guides and practical tips for teachers.
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This project from Level 1 Unit 6 asks students to analyse some of the key features of an example project before planning and creating their own. Finally, they can evaluate other groups’ tasks.
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Background
Collaboration is an effective way of empowering students, allowing them to take ownership of their learning.
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Project work allows students to…
- Build collaborative skills, such as communication, teamwork and leadership.
- Acquire practical, transferrable skills associated with different types of projects, like doing research and making presentations.
- Choose and explore areas that they are interested in, thereby increasing their motivation.
- Engage with the real-world issues as projects are often interdisciplinary
Global topics
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Shape It! has a global, cultural focus, with topics from traditional dress to unique festivals. The documentaries and the Around the World pages bring these global topics to life, exposing students to people and places from around the world, and asking questions which encourage students to think about the similarities and differences between their culture and other cultures.
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Background
The global topics in Shape it! help students broaden their understanding of other people and places, preparing them for life in a diverse, multi-cultural environment.
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Teachers will be aware that their students are already interacting with globalised media. From watching international TV shows to playing online video games, teenagers are already encountering English being used by both native and non-native speakers from different cultural and social backgrounds. This interconnectedness is only going to increase, so it is vital that students develop the skills they need to communicate effectively.
Teen-friendly video
Shape It! includes four or five videos per unit made especially for this course. As well as documentaries, there are grammar vlogs and Everyday English videos designed to appeal to adolescent learners.
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Documentaries
Documentaries appear at the beginning of every unit. Along with the striking opening image, and Start it! questions, they are a great way to get students thinking about the unit topic and activate any prior knowledge and language they may have.
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Documentaries also appear on the Around the World pages in every other unit. These contextualise the grammar and vocabulary of the unit and are linked to the topic of the reading.
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Language in Action videos
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Language in Action videos appear on the grammar pages of the unit. These fun vlogs feature teenagers using the target language in context. Each vlog is followed by an animated presentation of the grammar, using real examples from the video. They are designed to make teaching and learning grammar more meaningful, and give the teacher the option of using a flipped classroom model by getting students to watch the video before class.
Everyday English videos
Everyday English videos appear on the speaking pages. Teachers often find that students love learning the latest colloquial words and real phrases in English, and these videos are a great way of presenting this. They feature teenagers using authentic English from the speaking dialogue, and give students the chance to try out these phrases for themselves.
Mixed-ability Support
In Shape It!, there is extensive support for teachers with mixed ability classes, including graded Workbook activities, suggestions for differentiating activities, an entire Project Book guiding teachers through each project and graded grammar and vocabulary worksheets.
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When students arrive at Secondary school, they may have spent more or less time studying English than their classmates. The average English class will have students with a variety of different language abilities, not to mention different interests, levels of motivation and learning preferences. In Shape It! there is extensive support for teachers with mixed ability classes, including the following:
On the Student’s Book page, Finished? icons direct fast finishers to fun extra practice at the back of the book to ensure all students are challenged.
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Workbook activities are graded 1, 2 or 3 stars to indicate their difficulty level. This means that students can start at the easiest level and move onto more difficult activities when ready. Alternatively, teachers can set different activities for different students according to their ability.Â
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Teacher’s Book notes provide suggestions for grading activities to different students’ abilities.
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Project Book teacher’s notes provide specific suggestions for differentiated instruction. These cater for students who need more support as well as students who would benefit from more challenge.
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Graded grammar and vocabulary worksheets at three different levels can be found in the online Teacher’s Resource Bank.
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Digital Tools
To access the Shape it! digital materials, go to cambridgeone.org
The Shape it! digital package has everything you need in one place on Cambridge One:
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Plan: All your teaching materials, all in one place.
Present: Interactive Student's Book and Workbook with embedded audio and video, perfect for heads-up learning.
Practice: Mobile-friendly bite-sized practice activities and games for every unit of the Student's Book.
Collaborate: Students can collaborate on project work remotely.
Motivate: Medals for completing activities provide motivation to do extra practice.
Assess: See student performance at a glance and download ready-made tests.
Presentation Plus
- Student’s Book and Workbook with interactive exercises.
- Click-to-play audio and video
- Extra class activities, only available on Presentation Plus
- Games
- Accessible online and offline
Practice Extra
- Mobile friendly platform and content.
- Bite-sized learning activities.
- Online speaking tasks with audio and video.
- Performance tracking and gamification.
Collaboration Plus
Students can collaborate digitally online and offline in the collaboration space, where teachers can set, track and assess students’ work.
Teachers Resource Bank and Test Generator
Online teacher resource area with culture projects, graded grammar and vocabulary practice worksheets, video worksheets, communication worksheets, writing template worksheets, video grammar vlogs, speaking extra activities, and more!
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Test Centre, including end-of unit, term and year tests, and exam practice tests. Or use the Test Generator to create your own customised tests.
Shape It! and The Cambridge Life Competencies Framework
How can we prepare our students to succeed in a world that is rapidly changing? We need to help students develop transferrable skills, to work with people from around the world, to think creatively, to analyse sources critically and communicate their views effectively. How can we teach these alongside language?
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In response to these questions, Cambridge University Press has developed The Cambridge Life Competencies Framework. This Framework underpins the syllabus for the Learn to Learn pages and the collaborative project work in Shape It!, helping teachers recognise and assess the many transferrable skills that the course develops.
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The Framework is split into 3 levels of detail. First, there are 6 Areas of Competency. Each area is then split into the Competencies your students need to develop in these areas. Finally, within each Competency, there are a number of Can Do Statements, which outline how a student, depending on their age, would demonstrate this Competency.
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Let’s take the Learning to Learn area as an example:
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Learning to Learn
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These competencies are developed in the Learn to Learn feature which appears throughout the unit and in the Learn to learn page at the end of each unit.
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This page from Level 1 Unit 1 helps students organise their notebook by encouraging them to look at an example of a notebook, compare it with their own, and finally, reflect on how theirs could be improved.
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Collaboration
The collaboration area of The Cambridge Life Competencies Framework also plays a huge part in the course, through projects in the Student’s Book and in the Teacher’s Resource Bank online. All of which have extensive support and guidance in the Project Book.
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This project from Level 1 Unit 6 asks students to analyse some of the key features of a model project before planning and creating their own. Finally, they can evaluate other groups’ tasks.
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Notes from the Authors of Own it!
Daniel Vincent
Daniel Vincent has taught English for over 15 years in the UK, Japan and Spain, and has experience in materials and course development.
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With group, pair and project work being a key component in the teenage classroom, collaboration is a key skill needed to complete this work successfully. In Dan’s webinar, he covers the benefits of collaborative learning and project work, specifically looking at why we should get our students to undertake this type of work and why we should develop their collaborative skills.
Interested in reading more content from Dan Vincent?
Dan has also contributed to the Cambridge University Press blog, with his 'Teens together' series, including lots of practical tips on how to incorporate project work into your classroom:
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Teens together #1: Collaborative project work – the benefits of building towers
Teens together #4: Collaborative project work – museums
Teens together #5: Collaborative project work – music
Samantha Lewis
Samantha Lewis has worked in ELT since 1994 as a teacher, teacher trainer, CELTA trainer and materials writer in Spain and the UK. Before Own it!, she co-authored Interactive and Tactics, a Cambridge University Press coursebook for Spanish upper secondary students.
Interested in reading more content from Samantha?
Find more articles on the Cambridge University blog, World of Better Learning:
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Components
Components
Shape It! Level 1 Student's Book with Practice Extra
Shape It! Level 2 Student's Book with Practice Extra
Shape It! Level 3 Student's Book with Practice Extra
Shape It! Level 4 Student's Book with Practice Extra
Shape It! Level 1 Combo A Student's Book and Workbook with Practice Extra
Shape It! Level 2 Combo A Student's Book and Workbook with Practice Extra
Shape It! Level 3 Combo A Student's Book and Workbook with Practice Extra
