- Email: [email protected]
Review of: Instant academic skills
Journal of English for Academic Purposes 10 (2011) 285–286
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of English for Academic Purposes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap
Book review Review of: Instant academic skills, S. Lane. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2011). p. 128, US $55.55/UK £31.82, ISBN: 9780521121620 TESOL teachers are often at a loss to come up with interesting and challenging materials to supplement skill courses and Intensive English Language Program (IEP) electives such as TOEFL and IELTS prep. However, Sarah Lane’s recently published book, Instant Academic Skills, appears to solve this dilemma by producing a resource book that benefits both the teacher and the upper intermediate and advanced language learner. The text, published by Cambridge University Press, comes with an Audio CD, and 30 ready to teach photocopiable lessons. Each lesson is accompanied by a very clear and simple “paint by the numbers” plan which especially works well for the novice teacher who is still engaged in the learning curb or the overloaded teacher who needs to shift to “autopilot” to avoid burn out. The book is divided into Five General Academic themes: Health and Medicine; Business; Science and Technology; Arts; and Education. The generality of these themes permit them to be used by a student specializing in a particular field to become more familiar with how English is used within his/her specialization, as well as the non-specialist learner who is simply seeking to increase his/her academic vocabulary and reading comprehension skills. Each theme is supported by three accompanying learning units that contain two lessons. These lessons not only enlist an integrated approach, drawing upon all the four skill areas of reading, speaking, listening, and writing, but are also designed to allow the instructor to use them under a central theme or to shore up one particular skill that his/her class is having difficulty mastering. Both the themes and lessons from Instant Academic Skills can be taken out of sequence and used by an instructor who may need to fill in the gaps of his/her lessons with additional supplementary materials. Additionally, the lesson plans for each unit, which provide controlled activities that take approximately an hour to complete, include teaching strategies for the instructor, a warm–up activity, and two or three photocopiable worksheets. While the lesson plan ensures that all four skill areas are utilized within each lesson, reading or listening tasks are usually introduced after the warm-up, and are proceeded by a speaking and writing activity. The text also includes an audio transcript of the CD tracks, examples of American Psychological Association (APA) referencing, learning games, academic word lists, and a reference sheet on the differences between the styles of spelling and punctuation in British and American English. Theme 1: Health and Medicine is divided into three units: The Secrets of a Long Life; Diet and Behaviour; and Medicine from Nature. The worksheets in these units allow the student to build on a lexicon compiled of words tied to longevity, biology, diet and medicine. In addition, the lesson plans included in Theme 1 provide the learner with practice in the Cornell method of note taking, the use of oral citation, criticality tasks, recognizing and writing complex sentence structures, paraphrasing the content from articles, and preparing and delivering informative and persuasive speeches. The unit worksheets address many fascinating topics such as creating an antibiotic from alligator blood and the use of Omega 3 as a means to modify criminal behavior. Theme 2: Business consists of the units: Supply and Demand; Alternative Finance; and Socially Responsible Business. It provides the student with listening activities that center around marketing motives, microfinance, and business and climate change. Academic skills are further developed by worksheet tasks that engage students in practicing business English, writing thesis statements, composing summaries, predicting lecture organization, assessing the validity of information from printed material, preparing 1-min speeches, and understanding how to use vocabulary in context. Although the Business section provides appropriate topics and introduces students to a robust vocabulary of business related terms, it appears one of the weakest parts of the text because the lessons fail to generate any thought provoking tasks on many debatable issues associated with business and marketing practices such as the repercussions of micro loans for developing countries, and the negative effects of eco tourism. The lessons in the units for the Business themes could have been strengthened by including tasks that developed critical thinking and reading skills. The units in Theme 3, Science and Technology, are divided into the very interesting topics of Robots in Science; Alternative Energy; and Genetic Engineering. The vocabulary practice in the units is some of the most extensive and impressive of the text. Moreover, its lesson plans are the liveliest because they engage the student in critical thinking and debate, a component that was lacking in the previous theme. Another fun and beneficial skill that is taught in Science and Technology is mind mapping,
doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2011.06.002
286
Book review / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 10 (2011) 285–286
a technique that unfortunately is often missing from the lesson plans of many TESOL instructors involved in teaching academic skills. Activities in devising strategies for coping with unfamiliar words in lectures, and creating rebuttals in debate can also be found in Science and Technology. The Arts, Theme 4, begins with Wonders of the Ancient World; followed by What does Music Do for Us?; and ends with Controversy in Art. The focus of skill development in these units include lessons that provide students with practice in contrasting basic essay construction (i.e. introduction, supporting details, and conclusion) with formal presentation structure; referencing document sources; peer editing and feedback; identifying opinions and acknowledging opposing viewpoints in formal presentations; and punctuating quoted speech. In addition, the lesson plans include speaking tasks that teach the student how to effectively use transitional phrases and how to objectively defend his/her opinion; reading exercises to strengthen comprehension and vocabulary skills; and a writing activity that instructs the student in creating and writing ‘effective hooks’ for essays. Sadly, the worksheets pertaining to music are extremely bland because their activities lack the use of music and song in them. The book ends on Theme 5: Education. This theme is probably of the greatest interest to those students who are seeking to study at a university in an English speaking country. Its three units: Applying to University; At University; and Issues in Education provide tasks that will assist the student in gaining entrance to institutions of higher learning in the United Kingdom, the United States or other English dominant nations. The unit on Applying to University provides the student with speaking tasks in three different model interviews for university admission, as well as familiarizing him/her with the application essay. The worksheets for At University introduce the student to the orientation process for new campus arrivals. They also include lesson plans that address the issue of cultural shock and adjusting to university life. The final unit, Issues in Education, seems to have been hastily put together and is a very weak finale to Instant Academic Skills. The lesson plan on Online Learning is anemic as it tries to condense a very broad topic into a very general overview. The issue of online learning could have been strengthened if it had been a unit unto itself. The final lesson plan, Plagiarism, is a worthy and poignant topic to end on, but would have been more appropriately placed in At University than in Issues in Education because it is less an issue and more of an academic reality that a student must be constantly mindful of. Again, similar to Online Learning, Plagiarism, because of the scope and importance of the topic, merited a full unit to make the student more knowledgeable of this issue rather than limiting it to worksheet practices in collocations and role playing activities that seem to do little to train students in strategies to avoid plagiarizing. I feel the text could have been made stronger by ensuring that there were distinct headings for each theme area. The lack of such creates confusion because all the units seem to meld together making navigating through Instant Academic Skills awkward. Also, what the text calls “authentic” material appears very non-authentic and text generated. The graphics are often of poor quality and the lack of color images make the worksheets dull and non-engaging. While the worksheets in Instant Academic Skills do provide websites where authentic materials can be found more should have been done in expanding each activity or set of activities by suggesting ways that the instructor could draw upon audio, visual, or written materials from the “real” world outside the classroom. Additionally, although the CD stories, interviews and lectures are interesting and make good use of different native English speaking accents, as well of the accents of foreign speakers of English, the abrupt phase out of the speakers on some of the tracks is disappointing because it will no doubt frustrate engrossed listeners who anticipated hearing the whole lecture. Despite these drawbacks, Instant Academic Skills is a good resource text, and college minded English language learners could benefit from its academic skills learning activities. Kudos should be given to the text for maintaining its goal in providing tasks that develop academic skills. Many times an ESL/EFL text will promote itself as an academic skill builder, but in fact is little more than a compilation of advance grammar exercises. Instant Skills should also be commended for its inclusion of both individual and group work in its skill building activities - not often seen in texts of this type. Although Instant Academic Skills lends itself well for use by any ESL/EFL instructor who may be seeking a resource book for general academic activities for their upper intermediate to advance level student, the material in the text seems more targeted toward complementing materials used by teachers in EAP or TOEFL and IELTS Preparatory programs. John Gilbert School of Education, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus,Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK E-mail address: [email protected]
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of English for Academic Purposes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap
Book review Review of: Instant academic skills, S. Lane. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2011). p. 128, US $55.55/UK £31.82, ISBN: 9780521121620 TESOL teachers are often at a loss to come up with interesting and challenging materials to supplement skill courses and Intensive English Language Program (IEP) electives such as TOEFL and IELTS prep. However, Sarah Lane’s recently published book, Instant Academic Skills, appears to solve this dilemma by producing a resource book that benefits both the teacher and the upper intermediate and advanced language learner. The text, published by Cambridge University Press, comes with an Audio CD, and 30 ready to teach photocopiable lessons. Each lesson is accompanied by a very clear and simple “paint by the numbers” plan which especially works well for the novice teacher who is still engaged in the learning curb or the overloaded teacher who needs to shift to “autopilot” to avoid burn out. The book is divided into Five General Academic themes: Health and Medicine; Business; Science and Technology; Arts; and Education. The generality of these themes permit them to be used by a student specializing in a particular field to become more familiar with how English is used within his/her specialization, as well as the non-specialist learner who is simply seeking to increase his/her academic vocabulary and reading comprehension skills. Each theme is supported by three accompanying learning units that contain two lessons. These lessons not only enlist an integrated approach, drawing upon all the four skill areas of reading, speaking, listening, and writing, but are also designed to allow the instructor to use them under a central theme or to shore up one particular skill that his/her class is having difficulty mastering. Both the themes and lessons from Instant Academic Skills can be taken out of sequence and used by an instructor who may need to fill in the gaps of his/her lessons with additional supplementary materials. Additionally, the lesson plans for each unit, which provide controlled activities that take approximately an hour to complete, include teaching strategies for the instructor, a warm–up activity, and two or three photocopiable worksheets. While the lesson plan ensures that all four skill areas are utilized within each lesson, reading or listening tasks are usually introduced after the warm-up, and are proceeded by a speaking and writing activity. The text also includes an audio transcript of the CD tracks, examples of American Psychological Association (APA) referencing, learning games, academic word lists, and a reference sheet on the differences between the styles of spelling and punctuation in British and American English. Theme 1: Health and Medicine is divided into three units: The Secrets of a Long Life; Diet and Behaviour; and Medicine from Nature. The worksheets in these units allow the student to build on a lexicon compiled of words tied to longevity, biology, diet and medicine. In addition, the lesson plans included in Theme 1 provide the learner with practice in the Cornell method of note taking, the use of oral citation, criticality tasks, recognizing and writing complex sentence structures, paraphrasing the content from articles, and preparing and delivering informative and persuasive speeches. The unit worksheets address many fascinating topics such as creating an antibiotic from alligator blood and the use of Omega 3 as a means to modify criminal behavior. Theme 2: Business consists of the units: Supply and Demand; Alternative Finance; and Socially Responsible Business. It provides the student with listening activities that center around marketing motives, microfinance, and business and climate change. Academic skills are further developed by worksheet tasks that engage students in practicing business English, writing thesis statements, composing summaries, predicting lecture organization, assessing the validity of information from printed material, preparing 1-min speeches, and understanding how to use vocabulary in context. Although the Business section provides appropriate topics and introduces students to a robust vocabulary of business related terms, it appears one of the weakest parts of the text because the lessons fail to generate any thought provoking tasks on many debatable issues associated with business and marketing practices such as the repercussions of micro loans for developing countries, and the negative effects of eco tourism. The lessons in the units for the Business themes could have been strengthened by including tasks that developed critical thinking and reading skills. The units in Theme 3, Science and Technology, are divided into the very interesting topics of Robots in Science; Alternative Energy; and Genetic Engineering. The vocabulary practice in the units is some of the most extensive and impressive of the text. Moreover, its lesson plans are the liveliest because they engage the student in critical thinking and debate, a component that was lacking in the previous theme. Another fun and beneficial skill that is taught in Science and Technology is mind mapping,
doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2011.06.002
286
Book review / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 10 (2011) 285–286
a technique that unfortunately is often missing from the lesson plans of many TESOL instructors involved in teaching academic skills. Activities in devising strategies for coping with unfamiliar words in lectures, and creating rebuttals in debate can also be found in Science and Technology. The Arts, Theme 4, begins with Wonders of the Ancient World; followed by What does Music Do for Us?; and ends with Controversy in Art. The focus of skill development in these units include lessons that provide students with practice in contrasting basic essay construction (i.e. introduction, supporting details, and conclusion) with formal presentation structure; referencing document sources; peer editing and feedback; identifying opinions and acknowledging opposing viewpoints in formal presentations; and punctuating quoted speech. In addition, the lesson plans include speaking tasks that teach the student how to effectively use transitional phrases and how to objectively defend his/her opinion; reading exercises to strengthen comprehension and vocabulary skills; and a writing activity that instructs the student in creating and writing ‘effective hooks’ for essays. Sadly, the worksheets pertaining to music are extremely bland because their activities lack the use of music and song in them. The book ends on Theme 5: Education. This theme is probably of the greatest interest to those students who are seeking to study at a university in an English speaking country. Its three units: Applying to University; At University; and Issues in Education provide tasks that will assist the student in gaining entrance to institutions of higher learning in the United Kingdom, the United States or other English dominant nations. The unit on Applying to University provides the student with speaking tasks in three different model interviews for university admission, as well as familiarizing him/her with the application essay. The worksheets for At University introduce the student to the orientation process for new campus arrivals. They also include lesson plans that address the issue of cultural shock and adjusting to university life. The final unit, Issues in Education, seems to have been hastily put together and is a very weak finale to Instant Academic Skills. The lesson plan on Online Learning is anemic as it tries to condense a very broad topic into a very general overview. The issue of online learning could have been strengthened if it had been a unit unto itself. The final lesson plan, Plagiarism, is a worthy and poignant topic to end on, but would have been more appropriately placed in At University than in Issues in Education because it is less an issue and more of an academic reality that a student must be constantly mindful of. Again, similar to Online Learning, Plagiarism, because of the scope and importance of the topic, merited a full unit to make the student more knowledgeable of this issue rather than limiting it to worksheet practices in collocations and role playing activities that seem to do little to train students in strategies to avoid plagiarizing. I feel the text could have been made stronger by ensuring that there were distinct headings for each theme area. The lack of such creates confusion because all the units seem to meld together making navigating through Instant Academic Skills awkward. Also, what the text calls “authentic” material appears very non-authentic and text generated. The graphics are often of poor quality and the lack of color images make the worksheets dull and non-engaging. While the worksheets in Instant Academic Skills do provide websites where authentic materials can be found more should have been done in expanding each activity or set of activities by suggesting ways that the instructor could draw upon audio, visual, or written materials from the “real” world outside the classroom. Additionally, although the CD stories, interviews and lectures are interesting and make good use of different native English speaking accents, as well of the accents of foreign speakers of English, the abrupt phase out of the speakers on some of the tracks is disappointing because it will no doubt frustrate engrossed listeners who anticipated hearing the whole lecture. Despite these drawbacks, Instant Academic Skills is a good resource text, and college minded English language learners could benefit from its academic skills learning activities. Kudos should be given to the text for maintaining its goal in providing tasks that develop academic skills. Many times an ESL/EFL text will promote itself as an academic skill builder, but in fact is little more than a compilation of advance grammar exercises. Instant Skills should also be commended for its inclusion of both individual and group work in its skill building activities - not often seen in texts of this type. Although Instant Academic Skills lends itself well for use by any ESL/EFL instructor who may be seeking a resource book for general academic activities for their upper intermediate to advance level student, the material in the text seems more targeted toward complementing materials used by teachers in EAP or TOEFL and IELTS Preparatory programs. John Gilbert School of Education, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus,Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK E-mail address: [email protected]