SkillsWork

The skills in question, as presented on the front cover, are of course the traditional four: speaking, listening, reading and writing. Inside the book, these skills are presented in the same order, in forty separate units, which means that each skill gets equal attention and is the focus of ten units. A closer examination of the two-page units reveals that each one is organized in a similar way, starting with a “Lead in”, then an optional “Word work” section, in 30 of the units. This generally precedes the central section-Talk about it, Listen, Read about it, Write about it-but is sometimes integrated into that section, in which case it is not given a heading.

Although the central section focuses on one specific skill, each unit calls upon at least three skills, the mutually exclusive odd men out being listening and reading.

The themes proposed are more likely to appeal to the adult student, and the photographs also seemed to be targeting a more mature audience. The cartoon-type illustrations, on the other hand, might be more appealing to the younger student, and could perhaps have been replaced by photographs or other illustrations. There is a CD for the listening sections, and the recording scripts are included at the end of the student’s book.

The units I tested on my adult learners worked really well. The Lead in session in unit 18, “Wired for sound” was so conducive to discussion that it left little time for the remaining parts of the unit! Unit 20, “Our survey says” was also very popular with this audience, but it would perhaps be useful to have a source or date for the statistics. The book was published in 2009, so presumably the data are recent, but as a language teaching book is often used for several years, some time frame would be helpful- or perhaps simply an internet address to a reliable source of data, such as the CIA World Factbook.

The only real quibble with SkillsWork is this lack of continuity, which would make it difficult to use as the main coursebook. If it is chiefly intended as an optional extra to supplement more traditional offerings, then a photocopiable format might be better, as few language schools have the money to invest in two sets of books per group.

My overall assessment of the book is very positive, but it would be helpful for the teacher to have more information about the target audience. SkillsWork is definitely appropriate for adult students of intermediate level or above. A small symbol on the back cover indicates levels B1 to C1 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Language (CEFR). Some units might be rather challenging for B1 students, and there does not seem to be any attempt to create a learning curve from the first to the final units. In fact the reading text from Unit 39 seems no more difficult than that proposed in Unit 3.