Book Review

Communicative Activities for EAP
Jenni Guse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011
(pp. v + 318)
ISBN 978-0-521-14057-7 Paperback and CD-ROM

Reviewed by Fern Edebohls
Aichi Prefectural University
Are some EFL subject areas intrinsically more “communicative” than others?
Speaking classes may immediately lend themselves to communicative teachingpractices, but it can be challenging to incorporate communicative activities
into academic listening class, or report writing class. Thanks to Jenni Guse’s
Communicative Activities for EAP, however, I have been able to do just that.
Guse’s book delivers over 100 communicative activities that are designed for use
in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classrooms. In the six months since I
purchased this book, I have used her activities with success in intermediate toadvanced level academic listening, report writing, speech, debate and discussion
classes.
EAP courses generally aim to prepare students for study at an Englishmedium university. Resource books in the EAP field abound, but most tend tolimit themselves to a specific skill set (such as academic listening), and fall shortin the area of communicative activities. Guse, on the other hand, targets multiple
EAP skills and makes communicative learning the focal point of her book. She
provides activities that promote active communication, learner autonomy andcritical thinking, while providing learners with exposure to authentic language.
Her tasks allow students to grapple with both academic content and skills (such78

Communicative Activities for EAP, 6(3), pages 78- 82

as note-taking, presentation skills, and academic writing) in a fun and accessible
way, and can be tailored to suit different proficiency levels and learning needs.
Guse divides her book into six chapters: speaking, listening, reading, writing,vocabulary development and grammar. She provides a brief overview at the startof each activity summarizing the nature of the task, language and skills it targets,minimum English ability of the learner, teacher preparation required, and thetime the task will take in class. Following this overview is a clear step-by-stepprocedure for implementing the activity. Where applicable she also includes anexample of possible student output through the task (mostly in the speakingand writing chapters), or an example of a suitable text to use within the activity(in the listening and reading chapters). Examples of possible student output
are helpful in allowing the teacher to envisage the types of student responses
to expect or encourage. Texts included in the listening and reading chapters areuseful in illustrating how to implement the tasks and what types of texts aresuitable.
Unfortunately, I found it difficult to imagine directly utilizing any of
the texts with my students. Guse explains in her introduction that she has
endeavored to provide model texts from a range of content areas, presumably todemonstrate the scope of her activities. The result is a rather eclectic collectionof language samples without context, often requiring specific topic knowledge.
Some examples include a lecture on Egyptian cultural objects, an e-commerceand development report, and an essay on modern architectural theory.
A further limitation of the model texts in the book lies in their presentation.
Though they are all labeled as “photocopiable”, the texts appear in an assortmentof oddly sized boxes and tables, regardless of page breaks and with no instructionsor space to write. The CD-ROM provided with the book includes all of thetexts in a more user-friendly format; however, as the texts are not editable andthe CD-ROM contains no other resource material, it seems a rather superfluous
addition to the book.
Although I chose not to use any of Guse’s text samples in my classes, I do notbelieve that they ultimately detract from the quality of the activities themselves.
Guse herself points out in her introduction that the choice of text must in79

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the end be the decision of the teacher, and that the activities in her book havebeen designed specifically to allow the teacher to choose the content area andauthentic texts which best meet the needs of each specific group of learners. I
believe it is this flexibility that makes the activities so effective.
One of my most successful academic listening classes last semester wasbased on an adaptation of an activity in the listening chapter. I chose Guse’s
Listening Comprehension exercise, which has students locate speech transcripts
of interest to them and work in pairs to devise comprehension questions fortheir classmates. I provided my students with a list of suggested websites where
they could view speeches, and access and print transcripts. This list was basedon Guse’s, with the addition of TED, The Open University, and British Council
Web sites. Students worked in pairs to design a listening comprehension task
based on the text. Guse suggests students create three questions: one with a yes/no answer, one who/what/when/where statement with missing words at theend, and one why/how statement with missing words. I also asked students tocome up with a pre-reading activity to introduce the topic and vocabulary.
Guse’s idea of offering a grammatical pattern for the questions encouraged
students to consider a variety of question types and content appropriate to each.
Students practiced reading the script smoothly and then formed new pairs toadminister their mini-tests. The students were on-task and engaged from start
to finish despite the fact that this was an extra-curricular class with a challenging
range of ability-levels and backgrounds. It was a pleasure to watch thementhusiastically discussing their chosen texts and formulating comprehension
tasks. One student waited after class to tell me how much he had enjoyed being
able to “be the teacher”.
I enjoyed similar success with an activity from Guse’s grammar chapter, ina university report writing class. The Sentence Auction activity (which Guse
explains is adapted from a game in Mario Rinvolucri’s 1984 resource book,Grammar Games) has the teacher collect incorrect sentences from student
writing and compile these randomly on the board, together with accurate
example sentences. (Guse does not specify, but I chose to use student work heretoo). Student groups are awarded a budget (e.g., $1000), which they use to bid for80

Communicative Activities for EAP, 6(3), pages 78- 82

sentences that they believe to be correct. The amount they are willing to disburse
for a sentence will depend on their confidence in its accuracy. The teacher takes
the role of auctioneer, and continues the auction until all the sentences have beensold. The class then examines the sentences to identify which are incorrect andwhy. The group with the highest number of accurate sentences wins.
I used this activity to provide feedback on a student composition assignment.
The activity allowed students to develop their self-correction and editing skills,
while reviewing problematic grammar and vocabulary. The auction nature of thetask was effective in encouraging students to identify how well they understood
the grammatical issues at work as they decided how much “money” a sentence
was worth. Student groups engaged in lively debate throughout the auction, andthis activity allowed me to transform a potentially teacher-centered feedbackclass into an active student-centered learning environment.
Guse achieves her aims of promoting active communication, learnerautonomy and critical thinking while exposing learners to authentic language,
in a number of ways. Her activities focus on genuine communication in English
both through tasks such as discussion and project work, and in the way inwhich students work at them in pairs or groups. Her tasks require students tothink critically and analyze language, while learner autonomy is encouraged byallowing students to make choices related to content and task-management,
as well as through peer tutoring and cooperation. Text authenticity is largely
dependent on the teacher, but Guse provides ample online sources where theteacher or student can locate genuine oral or written language samples.
Guse’s tasks have recognizable utility value, and I have found that students
enjoy the opportunity to put their learning to practical use in creative,
challenging tasks that closely resemble those in which they hope to ultimately
employ skills learned in class. Communicative Activities for EAP is a valuableaddition to the pool of ELT resource books. It provides activity ideas that canbe adapted for use not only in the EAP context, but across a range of learning
situations. I recommend this book to any university-level educator seeking topromote communicative learning and student autonomy in the classroom. I lookforward to incorporating more of Guse’s ideas into my classes in the future.
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Reference

Rinvolucri, M. (1984). Grammar games. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.

Author’s bio

Fern Edebohls holds a Master of Applied Linguistics (TESOL) from Macquarie
University in Sydney. She teaches full-time at Aichi Prefectural University as partof their Project for the Promotion of Global Human Resource Development. Her
research interests include second language acquisition and global issues in language
education. fern@for.aichi-pu.ac.jp

Received: October 9, 2013
Accepted: December 18, 201382