The representativeness of lecture listening coursebooks: language, lectures, research-informedness

This paper examines 25 lecture listening coursebooks for their representativeness of ‘real’
lectures with a view to helping EAP practitioners make informed decisions about materials
selection and development. The aspects of representativeness examined are language,
lecture authenticity and research-informedness. The representativeness of language was
assessed by comparing signposts of important points with those retrieved from a corpus of
160 authentic lectures. Lecture authenticity in terms of source, delivery and length was
established by examining the audiovisual materials, transcripts and information provided
by authors. Whether materials were research-informed was determined by noting references
to lecture and listening research. Results suggest that current lecture listening
materials tend not to reflect the language and lectures students are likely to encounter on
their degree programmes. Moreover, materials are typically not (systematically) informed
by listening and lecture discourse research. These findings highlight the need for EAP
practitioners to approach published materials critically and supplement or modify them in
ways that would better serve students. The paper concludes with recommendations on
how this could be done.