Teaching the Teachers

May 26, 2009 2:00 PM

I'm in Spain and have been asked to give summer courses in English for academic purposes to university researchers and teachers of engineering. Apart from "English Academic Vocabulary in Use" (CUP), which I used last year - it's good - do any MeFites have any tried and tested recommendations for books and other materials that might be suitable? Amazon is great, but too often you can't get a feel for the book.
posted by Holly to education (5 comments total)

I would recommend Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. It's appropriate for high school and I suspect it would work well with your course, but you can browse the TOC and contents at Amazon to check. I'd also recommend Bob Marzano's books on Academic Vocabulary.
posted by mattbucher at 2:11 PM on May 26

Is this for oral or written skills or a mixture of both?
posted by Busy Old Fool at 7:27 PM on May 26

Thanks, mattbucher: will check out both.
Thanks, Busy Old Fool: more oral than written. Looking at putting a package together from different sources.
posted by Holly at 1:02 AM on May 27

OK, so they want mostly oral academic English skills. I assume we're talking about giving lectures, leading discussions, that sort of thing?

Well, firstly a lot of those skills cross over with business English, so you might want to use business methodology (not the materials, obviously). e.g. rather than tracking down books on academic English (which won't have much on Engineering) or books on Engineering English (which will omit the academic side), use online lectures as models and sources of lexis. As always, a lot of the language they need is phrases and chunks rather than individual words.

Another great web resource is Andy Gillett's Using English for Academic Purposes site. It's aimed at students rather than teachers, but once you start digging, it's an absolute goldmine of language and ideas.
posted by Busy Old Fool at 2:47 AM on May 28

Thanks, Busy Old Fool: good advice, and a great link. Muchas gracias...
posted by Holly at 2:16 PM on May 28