Abstract :
[en] Considering key tenets such as authenticity, specificity and needs analysis, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) materials should ideally be representative of target genres and communicative demands. This talk aims to stimulate reflection on the extent to which this is the case by comparing academic listening coursebooks against findings from corpus research into lectures (Deroey, 2017; Deroey, 2018).
Twenty-five coursebooks were analysed for their representativeness of ‘real’ lectures in terms of language, lecture authenticity and research-informedness. The representativeness of language was evaluated by comparing signposts of important points in the books with those attested in 160 lectures from the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) corpus (Deroey, 2015; Deroey & Taverniers, 2012). Lecture authenticity was established by examining audiovisual materials, transcripts and information provided by authors. Whether materials were research-informed was determined by noting references to lecture and listening research.
The findings from this research support claims that academic listening coursebooks do not present realistic lecture models (e.g. Alexander, Argent, & Spencer, 2008; Field, 2011; Thompson, 2003). On the whole, the coursebooks were not representative of the language and kinds of lectures students would need to understand, nor were they (systematically) informed by listening and lecture discourse research. This conclusion highlights the need for EAP practitioners to approach published materials critically and adapt them to better match their communicative students. I conclude with recommendations on how this could be done.
References
Alexander, O., Argent, S., & Spencer, J. (2008). EAP Essentials: a teacher’s guide to principles and practice. Garnet.
Deroey, K. L. B. (2015). Marking importance in lectures: interactive and textual orientation. Applied Linguistics, 36(1), 51-72. doi:10.1093/applin/amt029
