Listening

"The common-core knowledge in this series is the next big step for ELT to take in the 21st century." David Crystal "Extremely well-planned and constructed and very impressive." Duke of Edinburgh ESU English Language Award judges "At last a course that truly prepares students for IELTS by developing the necessary skills from the pre-intermediate level." Kevin Higgins, Professor of English, Asian University of Science and Technology, Thailand "Skills in English has formed the backbone of our 2008 Intensive English Course and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a skills-based course with an academic focus." Gabriel Roberts, University of Wales in Cardiff "I would thoroughly recommend this series to any centre running academic English courses." Tessa Moore, University of Nottingham "We have finally found a textbook which caters for international students at tertiary level." Sophia Michael, Intercollege, Cyprus "A very useful addition to the EAP tutor toolkit, which has received positive feedback from students too." Lezli Ataker, Nottingham Trent University "Attractively presented, with interesting topics and a number of language tasks which engage the students' interest and enhance the four language skills." Buckinghamshire Chilterns University "The topics are very interesting because they reflect today's world and what surrounds our students." Daniela Rizzuti, University of Calabria, Italy "Very appropriate for mixed-ability groups having different degrees of confidence in their English abilities." Aston University, UK "We are now using this series very successfully." Judith Sclare, EFL Unit, University of Glasgow "The Skills in English Listening books fill a big gap in the market." Morna Lawson, Academic English Tutor, Glasgow Caledonian University "The single most useful tool you could buy, if you are going to invest in a resource for embedding ESOL into a mainstream Science or other study curriculum, or if you are resourcing a Language Support provision." Liverpool Community College "The topics and tasks are appropriate for all learners and the course is preparing them well for future university study." Helen Armstrong, University of Teesside "This is a skills-based course with three levels for beginners to upper-intermediate level. The course is designed to prepare students for skills-based examinations such as the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). There are four books per level. Each book covers a skill; reading, writing, speaking and listening, and there is a Teacher's Book and test package within the set. All the books are linked by the same continuing themes and are designed to be used interchangeably. I loved the flexibility this course offers with the possibility of choosing the skills covered in each lesson, all linked by the same theme. There are four lessons in a theme and each of the four lessons are based around a learning technique within the skill being covered. These techniques are continued throughout the book. The writing skills book covers vocabulary, writing, learning new skills and applying new skills. There are also skills checks throughout the books which are either grammatical or directly based on the skills being covered. In the listening book, for example, there is a skills check for making notes and another for using comparatives. The books are set out very clearly and have a good amount of written and visual elements. They are easy to understand and in general each new lesson starts on a new page so it is easy for the student to follow. If I had a criticism of the book it would be the length. There are only ten themes per book and although there are four lessons per theme there is the tendency to cover two lessons at a time from just two of the books depending on the length of the lesson. I did particularly like the themed wordlists that identified the words by their grammatical name, and there are final summaries of the wordlists at the end of the book which are organised thematically and alphabetically. The Teacher's Book is also very well set out and very clear to follow. There are, however, a lot of blank pages after every lesson which is ideal for writing notes but tends to be irregular. The Teacher's Book is great because it has a small copy of the Student's Books in the corner so you do not have to keep referring to the Student's Book, which is really ideal in this course as there are so many books. There is also a methodology note which is very helpful and useful to refer to. In general I really liked this course and I would recommend it to anyone preparing for a skills-based exam. Rather than focusing on exam preparation, the books focus on the skills needed for skills-based exams. I thoroughly enjoyed using this course and there was a lot of positive feedback from the students." Louise Gladwin for the ETAS Journal 25/1, Winter 2007