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Working in English | |
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Authors: Leo Jones
144 pages
Price £12.00
ISBN 0-521-77684-8
This book is as the name says - working. It is for students doing a business course, or who are already doing a job. Its level is intermediate. The purpose of the book is to make its users more competent in everyday business and office functions - for example asking for extra details on a form, or explanations - for instance explaining why you are going to be late.
The book is divided into 40 units which should take about one hour each to finish. The units are arranged into seven sections - or 'modules' as the book puts it. They are - Person-to-person (which is basically functions of conversation - for instance finding out more about someone) Phone conversations, writing, exchanging information, meetings, entertaining visitors (what to do when you have a visitor in your office) and then explanations and presentations.
The author - Leo Jones - is a very well-known EFL writer, so his new book is worth considering. It comes with a lot of supplementary material - though some of this costs extra. You can get a tape with listening exercises (but intermediate students beware - some of the speech on these tapes is very fast) or a CD (for Microsoft Windows) with extra material. There is a teacher's book, and if you want it, even a video . The tape transcripts take up ten pages of the 144 page student's book - this is a lot of space wasted if you decide not to get the tapes. Also we could not find out if there is a version of the student's book with the answers in the back - the one we saw did not have these. But a lot of the questions are the kind that does not have one answer. For example - 'Look at this picture. Do you think that people will be using these things a lot in the future? Why do you think so?'
Because of this, the exercises are not really self-study, something that the publishers have noticed, because you can also get a self-study book to go with the students book, and this comes with a free CD.. You can study alone from the student's book, but the exercises work better with a teacher, or at least with someone you can exchange ideas with. For teachers there is a separate book. This is as thick as the students book, and gives very detailed explanations of how to teach each lesson. The CD has worksheets, an 'exercise maker' - which looks easy to use even if you are not good with computers - and extra material.
Finally there is a website www.cambridge.org./elt/workinginenglish where you can see for yourselves what the book is like. There are also extra worksheets available here, which is a good thing, as in our opinion, this book needs more exercises for students to practice what they have learned. There are lots of pictures, many in colour, but they are generally important parts of the exercises and not there just to fill in space.
Who is this book for? This book is best for a small class of students who are working in business, or who plan to work in an office. The exercises are function-based and designed to make you think and talk. A teacher with private students who are businessmen might also use this book, especially if the teacher is not very experienced, and needs the advice in the teacher's book.
Verdict: Very good for a small business class with a new teacher. Not as good for self-study
Assessment 7/10