English for

Lesson 1 Book reviews
Time: 90 minutes
By the end of this lesson, learners will be able to
➡
understand the author’s stance
➡
summarise information from academic articles in the form 
of a diagram
➡
recognise and use sentence adverbs such as surprisingly 
and fortunately
➡
use hedging words in an academic text
➡
use the language of evaluation and hedging in spoken reviews
Lead-in
1 The purpose of asking these questions is to encourage 
learners to reflect on their experience of book reviews.
2 Ask learners to guess what the person in the cartoon is 
(e.g. a researcher/critic/a reviewer). Ask them to describe 
how this person feels (e.g. cross, annoyed, irritated) and 
what might have caused such condition (e.g. he may be 
writing a review of an article or a book he thinks is bad).
3 
Answers
criticism
n. the act of saying that something is bad or could be improved
critique
n. a report of something, such as a person’s work or ideas, that 
examines it and provides a judgement of it
critic
n. 1 someone who says that they do not approve of someone or 
something
2 someone whose job is to give their opinion about something
Reading
4 Focus on the diagram first and explain to learners that 
they are going to find information in Text 1 to add to it.
Suggested answers
Positive features: good overview in introduction, useful table with 
chapters and learning outcomes, easy-to-read, clear style, draws 
on a range of disciplines and concepts, tables summarise ideas 
well, plenty of cases and questions, critical questions in chapters, 
interesting chapter on research.
Weaknesses: nothing about international differences in learning 
experiences, need for better supported final conclusions, little 
reference to other organisations.