Cambridge English for…

Part of the "Cambridge English for..." series

Teachers flipping through the pages of any one of the books in this attractive new series from Cambridge – Cambridge English for Nursing, Cambridge English for the Media, Cambridge English for Engineering, and Cambridge English for Job-hunting – will likely be transported to memories of in-company classes in their past: Classes in which they struggled to find material that was truly appropriate for their students, whether for lack of time or lack of knowledge of a particular field. In my case, the most noteworthy of these was a class of six beautiful young women working in a PR firm who yawned uncontrollably with the general Business English photocopy material I mawkishly cobbled together each week. Oh, Cambridge English for the Media, where were you when I needed you?

Indeed, the four texts that make up the Cambridge English for… series fill gaps in the market that were definitely in need of filling. And they do so in a very modern, practical manner.

As is quite common in ESP, the authors have put aside the grammar syllabus in favour of a content-based syllabus. Each text is divided into between 6-10 chapters, each chapter devoted to a subject area relevant to the field. The table of contents divides each unit into three areas of focus. In …for Engineering and …for Job-hunting, these sections are “Skills”, “Language”, and “Texts”; in …for the Media we have “Skills”, “Language Focus”, and “Texts”, while in …for Nursing, we have “Skills”, “Medical focus”, and “Charting and documentation.”

Each title in the series develops these sections in more or less similar ways. With exceptions for necessarily text-based units (for example, “Newspapers” from …for Media and “Writing and presenting your CV” from …for Job-hunting), the units begin with listenings which boast a large variety of both native and non-native accents. All the tasks are well-conceived to focus on job-specific lexis as well as functions, and the variety of tasks motivate repeated listenings.

The reading texts are well-chosen and engaging. Especially worthy of mention is the section on engineering urban legends in …for Engineering about cause and effect (including an article about “a chicken gun” used to simulate bird strikes on cockpit and train windshields, etc.). In testing some of these units, I’ve found that even the texts which lack a similar extra interest value still have an appeal and a motivational factor for students stemming from the similarity to their own work—the “shock of recognition” they experience when they see an example of a genre of text which they are familiar with, be it a marketing firm’s project vision statement or a Katz ADL index.

Comparing the four titles we see that they vary in the emphasis on writing skills. Those which focus most on writing—…for the Media and …for Job-hunting—do a good job of modelling texts of various genres (e.g. the cover letter to a CV or a photo shoot brief), focusing on features of the texts and details, and then letting students create their own. The book …for Engineering limits itself to tasks like writing safety instructions or answering FAQs, which is logical given the generally “informational” character of the language employed in this field. In the book …for Nursing, the “Charting and documentation” sections focus on the filling-in, interpretation, and explanation of the information in various types of charts and documents—the production of more elaborate texts not being a requirement of the profession in most cases.

The titles in the Cambridge English for… series all share a healthy focus on speaking: in addition to examples of interactions such as patient interviews (Nursing), job interviews (Job-hunting), client meetings (the Media), and briefings and presentations (Engineering), students practice a wide array of functions and forms for use within the professional setting, with colleagues, managers, subordinates, etc. A generous helping of sentence heads (“Would you mind…?”, “Why don’t we…?”, “I’d like to…”, “It sounds like it’s…”) are presented, as well as conditional forms for suggestions, might and may for softening, etc. Speaking exercises, generally in the form of roleplay, give students a chance to combine this functional language with the more job-specific vocabulary presented in each unit. Here is where students using the book for self-study miss out, as is almost always the case in this situation.

Visually, the books are very rich in images, whether in anatomical or structural diagrams, or examples of advertising or storyboards. (The book …for Job-hunting loses out in this category, being very, very text-heavy with the typical photos of people talking on the phone or writing at their desk sprinkled throughout.) In this respect …for Nursing does an especially good job, integrating the visuals into vocabulary presentation, though the photos in the section on “Wound bed management” did kind of turn my stomach. That shouldn’t really be a problem for nursing professionals used to seeing that kind of thing in real life, however. At times the images and texts can get a bit crowded together on the page, but this is perhaps more a function of the smallish format of the book than any real design flaw. In any case, this is a minor complaint.

In addition, each book has a set of teachers’ notes (an “online Teacher’s Book”) and a set of extra activities available from Cambridge online, a plus for teachers who loathe lugging around a thick TB from company to company. The teacher’s book includes suggestions for extension activities, and the extra activities are a good option for extra practice or for doing something a bit more fun.

With the possible exception of …for Engineering, the series seems to take for granted that the students using them are working (or in the case of …for Job-hunting, looking for work) in totally Anglophone contexts. As such, they may be most useful for foreign students working in an English-speaking country or who are preparing to do so in the future, more so than in contexts where English is a “foreign” language. Also, they are all pitched at the intermediate to upper-intermediate level (B1-B2), which may make them a bit difficult to use in mixed-level classes, and are altogether inappropriate for lower-level learners.

In comparing and contrasting each of the titles in this series, examining the differences in approach, the differences in focus, and the difference in the choice of language presented, one has to appreciate the criteria and expertise demonstrated by the creators of the each book. The precise, streamlined objectives, efficient presentation and thorough skills practice make this an excellent choice for any teacher or organization doing classes with students in these sectors. The Cambridge English for… series is a more-than-welcome addition to the existing literature and hopefully there will be more titles to come in the future.