Listening materials
Many of the lecture extracts in this book are based on transcripts of authentic lectures given at the University of Reading. These lectures were given to audiences of British and international students as part of their normal degree programmes. Although the extracts have been re-recorded to ensure clarity, the language and content of these lectures have been maintained, to ensure that you are provided with listening practice that closely simulates listening to, and note-taking from, real academic lectures.
The lecture extracts are taken from a range of academic fields, including investment banking, development economics, marketing, psychology and linguistics. Although the original lectures were intended for students doing degrees in these subjects, we have chosen extracts that should be accessible to students of all subjects.
Other extracts have been written specially for this book, but have been designed to reflect features of authentic academic lectures.
The symbol indicates that the recordings are available on both audio CD and DVD. Vocabulary
Although the recordings in the book may not be related to your particular subject, you will find a lot of useful vocabulary in this book.
There are different types of vocabulary that you may find useful: ■ Academic words: These are words that occur frequently in many different academic subjects, so whatever your degree subject, it is important to learn how to use them.
■ Non-technical topic words: Many of the recordings use sets of topic vocabulary which will be useful to students on almost all degree courses; for example, the text on market research contains many words connected with surveys, questionnaires and statistics.
■ Subject-specific words: Some of the recordings contain words which will be of particular interest to students of specific subjects; for example, there is an extract on social learning which will be of particular interest to students planning to study psychology.
Listening outside the classroom
Your listening will improve more quickly if you practise outside the classroom. You can do this in a variety of ways; for example, talking with English-speaking friends, listening to the radio or watching TV, or working with independent study materials (see further below).
You will find Sound advice sections in most units in this book, and these contain useful advice for improving your listening. Here are some more ideas. ■ There are a number of good websites which provide practice in listening to academic lectures. If you go to the EAS website (enter through
www.englishforacademicstudy.com) you will find links to some of these sites.
■ A wide range of vocabulary is part of the key to success in listening. You should keep a record of new words or phrases that you learn, and make sure you note down the pronunciation, particularly if it does not fit in with pronunciation patterns you are familiar with. Ask your teacher to model the pronunciation if you are not sure of it.
■ There are several dictionaries on CD-ROM where you can hear the pronunciation and see the meaning of a word on screen, either by moving the mouse pointer over a word or by clicking on it. The Macmillan English Dictionary and Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English both have good CD-ROM versions. Think about buying one of these because it will be useful, not just on this course, but in your later studies.
6 English for Academic Study
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97
