Make academic lectures accessible to students by developing their listening and note-taking skills

The new, fourth edition of Contemporary Topics expands on its highly respected approach to developing academic listening and study skills. Organized around realistic college lectures, the text guides learners through carefully sequenced activities in skills such as note-taking, focusing attention, intensive listening, and vocabulary building. It also helps students evaluate their interests and explore possible career paths.

Highlights

• Active listening tasks and explicit note-taking strategies help students take control of how they listen to lectures.
• ​Corpus vocabulary from the Academic Word List ensures that students are exposed to the core vocabulary needed for academic success.
• Teacher's Pack provides photocopiable quizzes and tests, additional vocabulary practice, teaching notes, answer keys, audio scripts, and simulated TOEFL listening tests for each unit.

New to This Edition

• New subject areas, presented as one-on-one academic lectures, emphasize professional applications such as software engineering, multimedia design, information technology, urban planning, and social psychology.
• ​Learning Outcomes listed at the outset of each unit let students know the goals of each unit and what their learning experience will be.
• New audio interviews with topic experts provide context for the upcoming unit lecture. 
• Bottom-up listening and pronunciation exercises emphasize important principles and improve realtime perception.
• An oral presentation activity, supported by specific preparation and delivery strategies, concludes each unit and includes the opportunity for peer evaluation.
• Proficiency assessments composed of short academic audio lectures and multiple-choice exams simulate TOEFL-style test format for practice on high-stakes tests.
• New Essential Online Resources include audio, video, and teacher materials (assessments, teaching notes, answer keys, audioscripts, presentation points, and more).

• Contemporary Topics 2 - Student Book - Scope & Sequence

• Contemporary Topics 1 - Student Book - Scope & Sequence

• Contemporary Topics 3 - Student Book - Scope & Sequence

• Contemporary Topics Intro - Student Book - Sample

• Contemporary Topics 2 - Student Book - Sample

• Contemporary Topics 1 - Student Book - Sample

• Contemporary Topics 3 - Student Book - Sample

Helen Solorzano lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the house where she grew up, with her husband, their two children, and her mother. She has taught English in the U.S. and in Lima, Peru. She enjoys the creativity involved in writing ESL textbooks and finds the process similar to putting together a giant puzzle. For Helen, NorthStar was an especially challenging project because of the fascinating topics involved. Other interests include technical writing for an international audience. She is a director of The TRAC Foundation (www.tracfoundation.org), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development of the TRAC computer programming language, which was developed by her late father.