The representativeness of lecture listening coursebooks: Language, lecture authenticity, research-informedness

This paper examines 25 lecture listening coursebooks for their representativeness of 'real' lectures with a view to helping EAP practitioners make informed decisions about materials selection and development. The aspects of representativeness examined are language, lecture authenticity and research-informedness. The representativeness of language was assessed by comparing signposts of important points with those retrieved from a corpus of 160 authentic lectures. Lecture authenticity in terms of source, delivery and length was established by examining the audiovisual materials, transcripts and information provided by authors. Whether materials were research-informed was determined by noting references to lecture and listening research. Results suggest that current lecture listening materials tend not to reflect the language and lectures students are likely to encounter on their degree programmes. Moreover, materials are typically not (systematically) informed by listening and lecture discourse research. These findings highlight the need for EAP practitioners to approach published materials critically and supplement or modify them in ways that would better serve students. The paper concludes with recommendations on how this could be done.