Using English for Academic Purposes

Andy Gillett put together the EUfAP site about 11 years ago, and it's been very successful since. It provides listening instruction, not just material or exercises.

One Stop English Listening

Here's heaps of material here. I'll try to categorize and describe some of it when I get a chance. It prompts your to register, which is free, but many of the materials appear to be available even without registration.

English Accent Coach

This website is being put together by Ron Thomson out of Brock U. It's currently in Beta, and will be changing a bit in the next few weeks, but it looks quite useful for helping learning hear the distinction between sounds. It's also likely good for TESL students learning about phonology and pronunciation.


It's a game-like interface that plays syllables or words containing target phonemes that have to then be identified. The sound quality is high and the the pronunciations are varied but natural. I would strongly recommend using earphones rather than speakers.

English-language Learning: Listening to Academic Lectures

This came from a Ryerson site, suggested by Irene Kosmas. 

English-language Learning: Listening to Academic Lectures appears to be a Canadian site. It begins with a significant overview of listening strategies. Then there are five lectures to work on. Each with a series of steps and exercises to work through. All have downloadable transcripts, MP3 audio files, and downloadable video files (all together in one large (over 100MB) zip file, which needs to be expanded) for flexible delivery. Although there is a copyright notice, all materials on the site are expressly free to download. The media also has click-to-listen links, but they wouldn't play on my MacBook. 

The speaker, at least in the first lecture, is competent, but rather dull. He reader from cue cards, and the video/audio quality is degraded by darkness and a constant buzz.

These are longer lectures, the first being 23 minutes: definitely for higher-level learners.

Focus on English

This is linked to from a Ryerson site, suggested by Irene Kosmas.

Focus on English is a set of basic situational-functional conversations. Topics include emotions, fashion, health, and shopping, and the conversations are very short. Perhaps suitable for levels 1-4 with most in the 2-3 range. Transcripts are sometimes available. The files all use the RealAudio format, so they're streamed--you can't download them. It looks like they don't want you to copy their stuff.

Human Evolution

This TED talk is very relevant to the level 6 reading chapter "the thread of life". The explanation is clear and the delivery is simple, if rather dull. The conclusions, however, disagree with the chapter's claim that we didn't mix with Neanderthals.

Breaking News English

I'll come back and add some details later, but here's a bunch of free listening activities around news items.

Level 8: About plagiarism

A number of files relating to the idea of plagiarism:

• From iTunes U, a 14 minutes interview. (item 11, date 4/15/08) with transcript.
• CBC ideas: In praise of plagiarism.
• Grammar Girl's podcast (episode 252)

This talk is mostly for faculty, but some students might get something out of it.

Although it's not audio and not appropriate for EAP students, I can't resist mentioning this essay.

Level 8 TED talks for independent listening

There are so many great TED talks, but here are some excellent ones that seem particularly relevant to our students' interests:

Level 8 TED talks

The following TED talks have been used, mostly with great success, in level eight.

The paradox of choice materials

One of the TED talks I've been using quite successfully in level 8 is "The paradox of choice" by Barry Schwartz. I've prepared some materials to go with this.

Canadian society

Here are a few ideas for the level 8 sociology course:

International business (level 5)

Here's some material on international business, especially business culture in Japan.

Hospitals and health

For level 3, Here are two Voice of America stories about infections in hospitals, about 4 minutes each. These are public domain files, so you can do anything you want with them. These are in special English.

Level 1: New to school

There was a observation that sometimes the level 1 students enter the EAP program with very little English, so it would be beneficial to have some easier listenings for them to start with before we dive into the textbook. Listening that are just 2 - 5 minutes, using basic, common words, and ideally in an 'Education/College' or 'Making Introductions/Meeting Friends' theme.

Level 7 debate materials

These files are useful for level seven students preparing for their debates:

Presentation skills

Here are a number of YouTube videos related to giving good presentations. They're listed roughly in order of difficulty.

Career-related interviews

These are, as of this posting, 112 straightforward job-related interviews.

What is EAP audio

This is a collection of audio files for teachers and students in Humber College's English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program. Files will often be listed as being suitable for particular levels. We have an eight-level program with students entering level 1 being at a very low level of proficiency (roughly Canadian Language Benchmarks level 2 or Common European Framework level A1) and students graduating from level 8 at a level that would allow them to function well in college  (roughly CLB level 9 or CEF  level B2).

We hope that the files listed here will be of use to other language teachers and learners.