The teaching of academic listening comprehension and the question of authenticity

Abstract This paper shows a range of insights that can be gained for EAP listening comprehension pedagogy from the analysis of a representative authentic lecture. Based on a small survey of academic listening textbooks the salient features identified in the lecture are found to be absent from the textbooks. EAP listening instructors, it is argued, need to supplement their commercial texts by exposing their students to authentic lectures. Only in this way can they prepare them effectively for authentic academic listening.

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