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Thursday, May 29, 2014

EAP resources

                                My Top (online) EAP resources

After writing my EAP course overview post, I thought to myself, "why not write about my go to EAP websites?" So, here are a few of the websites I use when I teach my English for academic purposes classes. If you have never taught EAP before, I think these links are a great starting point. If you have, still read this post cause you may find something you haven't used (you can also add your own choices in the comments section).
Spoiler alert: not all the websites are focused on academic English, I do mention how I use them in an eap-ish way, though. So, here goes!
  • The Cambridge Online Dictionary
It is an online dictionary of course! What I like about it is that you can press the little speaker buttons (on the webpage) and hear the AmE and BE pronunciation of the word you are looking for. 

  • Anglia Ruskin University Library (Harvard referencing)
I like this site because if the reference system you are using is the Harvard referencing system, then you can find clear examples and great guidance of in-text citations and how to write the reference list as well.
  • todaysmeet
You can use this site to hold short discussions with your learners. Use it like a discussion board (especially when blackboard's discussion board is down during the summer). It is similar to twitter as there is a characters limit. It is great for starting threads. Just go ahead and create a room and share the link with your students!

  • Ted talks/Ted-Ed
There are many talks from subject specialists which you can watch in class with your students as part of a listening or presentations skills class. There are many videos to choose from. Two of my favourites: Jamie Oliver's award talk on obesity and Amy Cuddy's talk " your body language shapes who you are". You can also go to TED-Ed and create a lesson!

  • British Council BBC
You have probably visited this site many times. Press EAP in the search tab and you will find many interesting links. You can get many ideas from this website about how to teach EAP, discussions about EAP and lesson ideas.

  • British Council-Learn English
Here you can find the Writing for a purpose resource with lots of information on how to write assignments, exercises and examples of assignments (there are many different types of genres to choose from so it is great no matter what field your students are in). There are lots of tabs to choose from, and the information is very clear for us teachers and for our students as well ( they can look at this at home or in class)! Very well organised and easy to click through and find what you are looking for.

  • turnitinuk
This is the software you can use to check your students' writing for plagiarism. You just need to create an account and submit the papers. After a while, you get the plagiarism results as well as the initial source of what was plagiarised. 

So, if you have heard of the Academic Word List, then this is a go to website. You can find the AWL (a list of words that researchers have concluded appear very frequently in academic texts) here. There are also tabs that focus on all the skills. You can either do some of the tasks with your students if you print them out or you can send them to this site as part of a self study task. Tell your students to press the materials tab and get down to work : ).

This is where you students can upload their presentation and record themselves speaking while changing their own PowerPoint slides. They then send the presentation to your email account and you can listen to them talk whilst also looking at their PPT. You need to press the home tab, sign up for free and then you start. Registering can be quite tricky but do try it out. My students loved using it.
  • Academic writing-Routledge website
If you have taught academic writing, you probably know Academic Writing: A Handbook for International students by Stephen Bailey. I often use material from this book especially for my lower level students. This book has a webpage and on this website you can find the answer key to the exercises of this book. There are also tabs with extra material, quizzes etc. Have a look at the plagiarism quiz tab!
  • Dvolver moviemaker
Your learners can create movies and send them to you. You may wonder what the connection to EAP is, though. Well, I use this as part of my seminar skills class. Very frequently, I suggest/teach expressions my students can use when holding discussions, negotiating etc. I then tell them to send me little movies with these expressions in them. So, apart from practicing during a speaking task in class, they also get to write them down and make their own dialogues whilst having fun!

  • One Stop English
You all probably know this website! There is an ESP tab and lots of material, some free, others you have to sign in for. Teaching tip: find the pdf file adopt Ivan. It is a great file to use when teaching seminar skills!





I hope you enjoyed this post. I know that there are many websites out there that you can use. I will be back with more suggestions in the near future. I look forward to reading any of your suggestions!: D

Till next time

2 comments:

  1. Thanks a lot for sharing these information.

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  2. Hi Julie!
    Thanks for reading and I really appreciate the suggestions you made. I will look into them. I am now making a second post about EAP resources : ).So, you were teaching at Bristol too? How cool! Are you going to be there this summer as well? I will be in Sheffield this year : )

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