EAP Listening Coursebooks: The Search for Authenticity

Authenticity has always been a key consideration in the selection and evaluation of EAP materials, and listening materials are no exception. However, the lectures presented in EAP coursebooks have been criticised for failing to provide authentic examples of academic lecture discourse. This study too...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Holden, Simon
Format: Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2017
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47985/
Description
Summary:Authenticity has always been a key consideration in the selection and evaluation of EAP materials, and listening materials are no exception. However, the lectures presented in EAP coursebooks have been criticised for failing to provide authentic examples of academic lecture discourse. This study took a small sample of six business themed lectures from three EAP coursebooks, and analysed their use of organisational metadiscourse, pronouns and questions. The coursebook lectures were compared with an authentic lecture from the BASE corpus. The results showed that the coursebook lectures are not representative of the discourse of authentic academic lectures. It is suggested that teachers cannot rely on such listening materials alone to prepare students for university lectures.