Oxford EAP

The needs of teachers and learners of English for Academic Purposes differ across institutions, levels and subject areas. Oxford EAP provides a course that is inclusive and international with a strong focus on the core skills needed for academic study, catering for the needs of EAP teachers and students across the globe.

The modular structure of the course allows tutors and students the flexibility to adapt the material to their own needs, which makes it suitable for use on pre-sessional courses, as well as on in-sessional language support programmes.

• Authentic academic source material from Oxford textbooks.
• A practical and straightforward best-practice approach that inspires confidence in both tutors and students.
• Progressive development of key academic skills, including reading academic texts, video-based listening, academic writing, audio and video based speaking tasks, study skills and research techniques.
• Unit themes appealing to a wide range of learners, whatever their subject of study.
• Modular unit structure, customisable to suit different course lengths and priorities.
• Academic language integrated with skills work.
• Support for non-specialist teachers with methodological notes and introduction to teaching EAP in the Teacher's Handbook.
• Attractive, modern design combining the best features of academic and general English course books.

Review of Advanced / C1 level by Wayne Trotman, EL Gazette, April 2014

It’s always good news when an EAP-related title appears in my postbox here in Turkey, and even better when it contains top-quality material such as the one under close scrutiny here. Although the series as a whole also contains material at levels lower than this, my thoughts here about Oxford EAP Advanced should give a flavour of what’s on offer. Briefly, the series is aimed at students wishing to improve their ability to study effectively in English on either graduate or post-graduate programmes.

The layout is admirably simple: the twelve units each start with a preview page showing the relevant – and always clearly detailed – learning objectives. This is followed by group discussion activities to get the necessary thinking processes going. So in unit one, on the topic ‘Behaviour’, we are told that this unit covers reading, and more specifically, among other things, ‘identifying genre, audience, purpose and perspective in texts’. Discussion topics include decision-making on factors affecting behaviour, such as social background, education and fear of punishment. Other genres of reading include argumentative texts, journal articles, textbooks, reports and case studies.

One little quibble here: it wasn’t really clear to me whether users of this book would at the outset need to be at C1 on the CEFR, or whether the aim was to take them up to those linguistically dizzy heights.

Each unit in this title contains work on all four skills, so unit two, ‘Sustainability’, has students engaging in discursive essay writing on traffic congestion charges and motivated consumers. Such writing activities are by no means brief; following stages on presenting arguments at paragraph level, there then comes critical thinking in order to generate and organise ideas, and then analysing and evaluating a main body paragraph. Along with work on the most relevant essay types, such as comparison, cause–effect and problem–solution, more specific features are looked at, including writing up citations, conclusions and summaries.

As one would imagine, listening and note-taking are emphasised throughout, and units involve short video-based extracts from authentic lectures, generally followed by critical thinking tasks. Unit three, ‘Creativity’, looks at preparing for a lecture, inferring the meaning of unknown vocabulary, various note-taking techniques plus developing an awareness of stance. Also included in sections devoted to listening are tasks on presenting in both verbal or poster format.

Curiously, speaking in this title is rather less emphasised and occupies less space within most units than work on other skills, but the book is none the worse for this, covering student discussions, seminars, presentations and teamwork. Topics inviting discussion in later units cover areas such as ‘Responsibility’, ‘Data’ and ‘Globalisation’. Along with skills development there is a good deal of emphasis on vocabulary in the form of identifying general and specialised senses, how synonyms alter meaning and recognising collocations in a text.

If the above hasn’t already signalled to you the value of this title, then there’s more: the accompanying DVD contains both video and audio content, including extracts from lectures delivered by Oxford University academics.

Oxford EAP (B1+) won the runner-up prize for the English-Speaking Union (ESU) HRH The Duke of Edinburgh English Language Book Awards 2013.

The judges commented, “Clear and professional in design…a comprehensive and effective course that will help both learners and teachers to achieve their academic goals.”

The ESU is a charity and membership organisation promoting education across the world. The annual awards recognise the best ELT book published each year.