SATEFL: Newsletters: Language Links Winter 02/03

Language Links, Winter 2002/03

download this issue of Language Links in Word format

In each issue of the Newsletter 'Language Links' provides a themed selection of web sites that might be useful for teachers or for their students. If you have any suggestions to make please send them to the Page Editor:

Dr Anne Stokes, University of Strathclyde
E-mail: a.stokes@strath.ac.uk

English for Academic Purposes Links

A significant proportion of EFL material on the web is put there by university language teaching departments; in addition, universities more generally have an interest in offering study skills and writing guidance to their students. For these reasons, EAP is well-served, although the bias is very much towards writing more than the other skills.

General Study Guidance

North America hosts much of the existing material. This in part reflects the importance of the Freshman writing class in the higher education curriculum as a whole, rather than the need to cater for non-native users of English in particular.

One long-established site for general advice on writing is at Perdue University, http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ (although there are many others).

There is also increasing provision of study skills guidance for all students over the web in the UK.

The Open University are past masters of this: http://www3.open.ac.uk/learners-guide/learning-skills/english/sect1/index.htm (see particularly their 'Tools of Writing' section)
London Guildhall's site, http://www.lgu.ac.uk/ldu/lduwebpages/aecontents.htm, also presents study skills and writing advice and examples for the general student.

For Learners of English

In Britain, non-native users of English may actually be better served than their NS peers, particularly in terms of practice rather than simply reference material:

Andy Gillett at the University of Hertfordshire Hatfield offers exhaustive guidance and activities on all skills: http://www.uefap.co.uk.
The University of Warwick presents some material on dictionaries, proof reading and bibliographies, but also, interestingly, on internet language: http://www.warwick.ac.uk/EAP/index2.htm.

Writing

Three sites at Hong Kong University are particularly useful, in the light of current trends, for those teaching students from the Chinese languages:

http://ec.hku.hk/writingmachine/default.htm; still under construction and rather 'text-heavy', but very detailed and would be useful for the more advanced student (it also contains links to other resources).
http://ec.hku.hk/writing_turbocharger/default.asp; only appropriate for students starting out but offers useful advice on writing with computers (e.g. guidance on using MS Word's own proofing tools etc.).
http://ec.hku.hk/acadgrammar/essay/main.htm; although this purports to be 'Academic Grammar', it is actually not so much grammar as detailed guidance on writing essays.

Another long established site is that of Ruth Vilmi at the Helsinki University of Technology:

http://www.ruthvilmi.net/hut/LangHelp/ ; the site also acts as a centre for related discussion forums, conference notices etc.

Other Skills

Outside the general sites given above, there is a lot less for the other skills apart from Writing that is specifically academic in orientation.

Dictionaries: There are many dictionaries available over the web, some covering specific topical areas, but the Longman Web Dictionary is a good general tool (although not 'academic' as such): http://www.longman.com/dictionaries/webdictionary.html.
Listening: http://www.esl-lab.com/ short listening exercises (North American English).
Reading: Again, North American sites offer plentiful advice on reading; for example http://www.yukoncollege.yk.ca/~agraham/guides/guidec.shtml and http://depts.gallaudet.edu/englishworks/reading/main/indexframe.htm (the latter includes practice tasks).
Speaking: http://www.kumc.edu/SAH/OTEd/jradel/effective.html contains tutorials on giving presentations (it appears rather inconsequential at first: you need to find your way to the link 'Begin your tour of this guide toƒ').
Vocabulary: For those interested in corpus-based approaches, Tim John's Kibbitzers (snap shots of writing advice based on his regular clinics) at http://web.bham.ac.uk/johnstf/timeap3.htm may be inspiring if not always immediately useful, but his pages also contain links for scientific and technical English; the Collins COBUILD Sampler, http://titania.cobuild.collins.co.uk/form.html, can give a first taste in researching collocations and usage patters for yourself (although again this is not restricted to EAP, of course).

And Closer to home

The EFL Unit at the University of Glasgow is developing writing materials based on a corpus of academic staff work: http://www.efl.arts.gla.ac.uk/Links.htm#writing.

Richard Davie
English Language Teaching Division
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
richard.davie@strath.ac.uk

back to the main Newsletter page

Membership: Many newsletter features are available only in the printed version, which is sent to members - visit the membership page to find out how to join.

Newsletter Issues: Main newsletter page and current issue; Volume 23 - 2003/2004 (Autumn, Winter, Spring); Volume 22 - 2002/2003 (Autumn, Winter, Spring); Volume 21 - 2001/2002 (Autumn, Winter, Spring)