Media Reviews
Well-organized units, relevant to students' current and future needs. Loughborough University A rich blend of activities and a wide range of topics complemented by helpful unit summaries and 'Sound advice' sections. Review, Business Spotlight, Germany In previous issues we have praised the English for Academic Study series (Garnet Education - University of Reading). Once again the publishers have come up with a winner with English for Academic Study: Listening by Colin Campbell and Jonathon Smith. You get the audio on a DVD, which is a great idea. The audio/video are all extracts from lectures. Many of these are based on transcripts of authentic lectures given at the University of Reading as part of normal degree programmes for British and international students. They are from a range of academic fields - investment banking, development economics, marketing, psychology and linguistics. And there's also variety in the nationality backgrounds of the lecturers. The book's units are divided into two sections; macro-skills and micro-skills. The macro-skills tasks include making use of lecture introductions, note-taking and recognising the structure of lectures. The micro-skills include recognising words that are spoken quickly and are not stressed, recognising where one spoken word ends and the next begins, and word stress. This book is very clear and would be easy to use for a teacher without a lot of experience with teaching academic English. The tasks are good, there's a wide variety of topics, and there are transcripts at the back of the book. In fact, the material on the DVD was so enjoyable that we continued watching it after we'd finished reviewing the book. iT's for Teachers, Issue 207, Spring 2008 English for academic study: Listening is part of the comprehensive University of Reading English for Academic Studies series aimed at preparing students for study in English-medium tertiary courses. Along with the other titles in this series, Listening is aimed at students with an IELTS level of between 5.0 and 7.0. Learners at the lower end of this range, however, might find the pace and range of the lecture extracts quite challenging. It is, therefore, appropriate that Listening uses a strategic approach and shows learners how to manage their listening effectively through a basic understanding of lecture discourse and common linguistic features. It comes with a Teacher's Book and two CDs, or a DVD (which was not available for review). Each of the eight units is divided into macro and micro skills. The macro skills include making use of lecture introductions, thinking about key ideas, principles of taking notes, note-taking formats, encountering new terms or concepts, understanding the macro-structures of lectures and identifying digressions. There are pre-listening and post-listening activities. At the micro-level, the units deal with word and sentence stress, the difficulties of hearing unstressed words and word boundaries all of which are needed by learners at this level. Helpful tips are included in the 'Sound advice' boxes. If you usually skip the introductory unit of a text as being too general, then don't do so in this case. The lecture in Unit 1 on 'Lectures' is a great opener and very useful. The lectures are based on tapescripts of authentic lectures and have been re-recorded by native and non-native English speakers at normal pace. They provide a rich language resources and could be listened to several times to exploit the content and discourse features. The range of topics is a welcome change from the 'Global warming' and 'Violence in the media' found in so many EAP texts. Social sciences, business and economics are well-represented with lectures on franchising, transport problems, East-Asian economies, development issues, law-making, and market research design. Many lecture extracts model specific linguistic and socio-linguistic features. No specialist or technical knowledge is required although the teacher might want to provide some additional introductory explanation for some of the topics. While Listening is most suitable as a course book, it could equally well be used for self-study. Tapescripts are included as well as two CDs. Although the recordings are excellent quality, I found the dual numbering system of the CD tracks and the tasks a little confusing and would have preferred that they were just referred to as CD track 1, 2, 3, ... rather than having to look at the key inside the CD pocket. The material and teaching approach are excellent and thorough, although there is little on developing critical listening. There are, however, questions in most units to help develop awareness of lecture features. For example, in Unit 3 learners are asked to consider why lecturers use examples, in Unit 5 which would be the most appropriate way to take notes for different lecture topics and in Unit 8 whether they should note down digressions. In Unit 7 they become familiar with macro-structures of lectures such as hypothesis, experiment, results, and conclusion. With strategies such as these, students should be able to approach university lectures with a fair degree of confidence. Listening has a wealth of listening material and well-structured units, making it an excellent choice for either a course book or a supplementary text. Elizabeth Morrison, Massey University for the TESOLANZ Newsletter, November 2008 This book is devoted to advanced-level listening and note-taking skills. Extracts on the two CDs are based on real lectures from academic fields such as banking, linguistics and psychology. The eight units are divided into two sections: macro-skills (e.g., note-taking) and micro-skills (e.g., word and sentence stress) with a rich blend of activities. A wide range of topics such as globalization, criminal courts and satellites are complemented by helpful unit summaries and 'sound advice' sections. Spotlight, December 2007 EAS is an EAP series (English for Academic Study) comprising seven separate course books covering the following areas: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, Extended Writing & Research Skills, Pronunciation and Vocabulary. The books reflect the most recent developments in EAP and are based on practical experience of EAP practitioners in the classroom. Each book can be used as a stand-alone course or supported by others within the series, depending on the needs of the students. EAP is taught on all courses that prepare overseas students for study at universities in English speaking countries. Students hoping to study abroad will therefore get a head start by studying such material rather than general English. The EAS series is used on a high proportion of EAP courses in the UK and Australia (and the US version is now being used in North America). It has received widespread praise, and the in the words of a lecturer at a university in the UK: 'There is virtually nothing else that has come on the market in the last ten years that touches it.' The series has been designed for students on pre-sessional and foundation courses within an IELTS range of 5.0 to 7.0. However, they can be used for any group of students who need to improve their English academic skills within this range. The series is based on authentic reading or listening texts within the appropriate range of the students; these have been carefully selected to illustrate the skill area in focus. Free audio material is included where appropriate, featuring authentic transcripts of realistic length with a variety of accents. The Listening course also comes with a DVD. A website features a variety of teacher and student resources including interactive activities for Extended Writing & Research Skills. TESOL Spain Newsletter, Vol 34-2, 2010 English for Academic Study: Listening is designed for upper-level English-language learners. The aim of this course book is to provide students with practice listening to and taking notes from authentic lectures. Most of the recordings on the two CDs that accompany the textbook were made from transcripts of lectures presented at the University of Reading, United Kingdom. Although the range of lectures is varied and includes academic disciplines from business to the social sciences, the authors have chosen extracts that should be accessible to a general audience of students (p.5). The course book begins with an introduction to the overall organization and its eight units: Listening and Lectures, Introductions to Lectures, Identifying Key Ideas in Lectures, Note-taking: Part One, Note-taking: Part Two, Introducing New Terminology, What Lecturers Do in Lectures, and Digressions. The transcripts for the recordings are included at the end of the textbook. This is a skill-based textbook that focuses on both macro- and micro-skills. Some examples of macro-skills include note-taking, lecture organization, and key ideas; some micro-skills included in the textbook are sentence stress and word families. The lecture segments highlight these skills for the students to practice. Each unit includes macro- and micro-skills presented through three to five learning tasks. For example, in Unit 2 the first learning task begins with two questions, which act as a warmer, and then the students listen to the beginning of a lecture in order to practice identifying the topic. Near the end of the unit the fourth learning tasks has students practice identifying word stress. The authors have also integrated vocabulary thoughout these units. Instructors and students will find terminology that is relevant to specific disciplines and words that are common in the university classroom. Some possible drawbacks to using this course book include the fact that the recordings are lecture extracts; this may cause concern that the lecture segments may result in skills being practiced in isolation. In addition, the lecture segments have been rerecorded, which some instructors may perceive as affecting the degree of genuineness. Finally, the British English of the lectures causes some minor language differences. Overall, EAS: Listening provides opportunities for students to listen to authentic lectures at the university level. The authors have attempted to make the lectures more accessible by highlighting discrete skills for practice in recordings of lecture segments. In addition, a DVD is available for purchase, which would provide a visual complement to the course book. This textbook would be most applicable to courses where a skill-based approach is considered appropriate. Jacqueline Foster for TESL Canada Journal, Vol. 26, No.2, Spring 2009 Listening in the English for Academic Study series published by Garnet Publishing is aimed in the general area of EAP (English for Academic Purposes) although, as explained below, its scope is probably much wider. It is desgined to form a 5 to 16 week course - the accompanying Teacher's Book gives a few suggestions for how this can run. It could also be used as a supplement in other classes, especially IELTS or CAE preparation classes. Transcriptions of all recordings appear in both Student's Book and Teacher's Book, and the latter also includes photocopiable exercises and resources. The outstanding feature of this book is the authentic listening materials on the accompanying CD, around which the text is based. These have been taken from various lectures at the University of Reading. While these have been re-recorded for clarity, the original wording has been retained and the speakers are real academics, not actors. Believe me, this makes a difference! The 'book map' at the beginning arranges the eight chapters into three sections; topic, skills focus and micro skills. Among the topics are linguistics, business, education and politics, with various sub topics such as the UK judicial system, franchising and health care. The great thing is that the material is actually interesting. Teachers can actually engage with the material themselves, and their conviction may well encourage the conviction of their students. I personally would like to have seen a greater variety of topics covered, although there is a website where free additional lecture podcasts can be downloaded, some with accompanying exercises. The 'skills focus' aspect of teh book concentrates on such things as the function of introductions, identifying focus, cohesion/signpost words, note-taking, seeing structure and dealing with unknown vocabulary. These are the broad 'macro skills' that are said to involve the listeners' overall understanding of the unfolding discourse. Most of the related exercises are clearly aimed at academic students, but many would also have value for the general listener, perhaps with some adaptation. The third category, 'micro skills', covers recognition of weak forms and stress, identifying word boundaries and other issues at the 'processing' or phonetic level. The balance between 'macro skills' and 'micro skills' is maintained throughout, with work on, say, stress patterns interspersed with skills such as identifying counter-arguments. This is based on the theory that second language listening involves a balance between the two types of skill, with comprehension problems arising from attention being focussed on one at the expense of the other. For example, a listener might not be able to identify some feature of connected speech such as elision. Struglling with this, it is very easy for them to lose sight of the unfolding meaning, the auditory equivalent of staring at the words on the page hoping that they will make sense. On the other hand, focussing on the bigger picture may mean loss of detail. Some function words can strongly affect the meaning of a sentence yet be scarcely noticeable, and 'can' can seem very much like 'can't' in some accents. This two-pronged approach gives teachers some solid work to do here in maintaining a balance. One of the main things that came across from trying out this book in the classroom is its usability. From the very beginning, it presents activities that are very approachable and accessible, and could easily be adapted to other recordings or broadcasts. One of the first lectures concerns the difference between the lecturing style in China compared to that in the UK. As well as being used to focus on certain skills, this got the students' attention and became a talking point. The value of having authentic materials cannot be overstated - it was a genuine relief to realise that there was no patronising 'graded' language, or any of the other 'EFL-friendly' horror that permeates listening resources. That the recordings and exercises utilise specific procedures to teach listening is itself significant. There are few Course Books that are comparable in this respect. Obviously, some of the skills are specific to university (like taking notes in lectures), but others have more general application, and the content itself would recommend it to many teaching situations, so long as the students were upper intermediate or above and pretty focused. It would of course depend on the nature of the class. An obvious application is IELTS preparation, where they could be used to berak up the repetition of 'exam practice', and provide a good alternative to section four of the listening lest (a kind of artificial 'micro lecture'). This could also emphasise the 'university preparation' aspect of IELTS. Listening materials are often the bane of the life of EFL teachers. The scripts are inane, the acting absymal and articifiality is their most obvious feature. All this in an era that supposedly extols natural communication and authentic practice! A listening class often amounts to little more than students 'eavesdropping' on preposterous conversations while filling in questions that test their comprehension. The assumption is that this will somehow develop their listening abilities outside the classroom, but is there any evidence for this? It is quite obvious that nobody in their right mind would play an EFL 'listening' recording for any other purpose than to teach (or, at least, to get through a class). The idea that these materials have any intrinsic value (aside from their educational purpose) would hardly be considered at all, unless one were exceddingly depressed. This is where this book stands out. It is not the only EFL Course Book to use authentic material, but the satisfying nature of the content and the relevance of the work gives it a real value, which I suggest is beyond simply being an aspect of academic study. It would be nice to see this idea developed further and brought more into the 'mainstream' since, as it stands (as 'EAP' material), this books is unlikely to get the attention it deserves. I'd definitely recommend this book if you want to actually do something with listening and introduce some genuinely interesting content into your classes. Tom Alder for TEFL.net, June 2010
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