Developing your English Campus ...

The MEC team is continually looking for ways to develop and enhance the functionality of the English Campus to make it easier and more effective for you to use.

This month we are delighted to tell you about a new feature we will be publishing to the Macmillan English Campus in April 2006.

What is it? The MEC ‘wish list’ has long included a mysterious item labelled ‘GRU links’. To explain – GRUs are Grammar Reference Units. They are designed to support and reinforce key points of grammar. We wanted to be able to create a cross-reference at the click of a button between a language exercise and any GRUs that are relevant to it.

Will it make it easier to use the English Campus?

Certainly! There are 430 GRUs and 392 language exercises in the Campus database which can easily be searched for using the regular search tools. But we decided that technology could make it that bit easier, and quicker, to find the ones you really need!

So the MEC Technical team have adapted the software and the MEC Editorial team have identified useful links from MEC resources to the GRUs. In fact, there can be up to 6 GRUs linked to a single language exercise.

How does it work?

The functionality of these GRU links is really simple:

STEP 1 This MEC exercise concerns ‘future questions with will’. The link to the GRU is available direct from the exercise (circled).

STEP 2 Click ‘View’ to open the GRU (circled).

STEP 3 The Grammar Reference Unit allows you to check the grammar point for the exercise. When you have finished click ‘close’ (circled in red) and then ‘x’ (circled in blue) to return to the exercise.

How can I use the GRU Links?

As usual, the MEC team doesn’t want to lay down any rules about how to use English Campus resources and features. We are always amazed at how innovative our users are at finding ways of using the English Campus with their users! But here are a couple of possibilities for using the new GRU links (experience tells us that MEC users will find many others!):

• The new cross-referencing will enable teachers using a projector or an IWB in a classroom to access grammar reference material relevant to a language exercise more easily than before. This may be because they want to open a GRU before the language exercise so the learners can check their knowledge or see a language point for the first time. Or it may be to use a GRU to reinforce or consolidate learners’ knowledge having worked through a language exercise.

To find out more about the Macmillan English Campus contact:
	Tim Howles Macmillan English Campus The Macmillan Building 4, Crinan Street London N1 9XW United Kingdom
	+44 (0)20 7843 4873
	englishcampus@macmillan.com
www	www.macmillanenglishcampus.com