Job Discussion Forums

[HLJHLJ]

I'm teaching an MA course on ESP, and I want them to look at a broad range of the coursebooks and resources that are out there.

Does anyone have any recommendations for particularly good (or particularly bad) ESP course books or resources?

I'd be interested in hearing about materials from any field, but I know I'm weak on Oil & Gas and Tourism & Hospitality.

[Tudor]

I've found the Oxford English for Careers books to be quite good; I've used the banking and oil + gas ones before and the students seemed to work well with them. They're also still relatively modern, which is a good thing.

At a lower level, the Oxford Express series is also quite good. Not only do they have skills-based books (emails, negotiating etc) but also books for different professions including weird and wonderful ones like English for the Fashion Industry and English for Football. The latter came in particularly useful when teaching a class of teenage boys who would talk about nothing else but football!

Express publishers have an extensive 'Career Paths' series ranging from the usual occupations to more unusual ones such as 'Beauty Salon' and 'Taxi Drivers', but I find their books to be rather simplistic and not very stimulating as well as error-strewn so tend to avoid using them.

So, for oil + gas and tourism I'd have a look at the Oxford Careers books that I mentioned earlier. In addition, for tourism I'd look at Highly Recommended and Going International (both Oxford), and Be My Guest and Welcome! (both Cambridge).

[HLJHLJ]

Thanks Tudor. I've used the aviation books from the Oxford Express, I thought they were OK, but a bit too easy. Aviation is a little different though as they are industry standard language requirements, so you don't tend to get very low level learners.

The football one looks excellent, I've never seen that before, but I could think of several classes where it would have been useful.

I'll go and sweet talk the local Oxford Rep and see what they can do.

[rtm]

The CUP website also has samples of a wide variety of ESP books. I've used these as samples in units on ESP, though I have never used any of them to teach ESP.

[HLJHLJ]

Thanks rtm, I have downloaded some of the samples, but I often find they are not that representative of the whole book (that's a general comment, rather than being specific to OUP), but I will run with them, if that's all I can get.

I'm surprised there isn't more choice really.

[nomad soul]

[HLJHLJ]

Yes, that could be the case although some of the ESP stuff still being churned out in business and finance is woefully dated. For some of the very technical ESP, it's so specific coursebooks would be impractical. However, I'm still surprised that there isn't more available for the most generic topics.

[dragonpiwo]

This is a great bookshop. Have a look at the link and you'll see the ESP section. It should let you know what's out there and then you can order/download stuff.

http://www.bebc.co.uk/