Make academic lectures accessible to students by developing their listening and note-taking skills through a series of diverse lectures with Contemporary Topics.

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.

Who are some of the key figures in the history of abstract art? Can video games be good for children? What are some ethical approaches to decision-making? 

You'll find the answers to these and other questions in  Contemporary Topics 1 , which features college lectures from several academic disciplines, including art history, media studies, and psychology.  Contemporary Topics 1  prepares students for the challenge of college lectures with practice in a wide range of listening, speaking and note-taking skills and strategies. The lectures (available on CD and DVD) were filmed in realistic academic setting before live student audiences. 

Course Features

• Corpus-based vocabulary drawn from the Academic Word List
• Practical listening and note-taking strategies
• Note-review practice that allows students to analyze their note-taking skills and consolidate their understanding of the lecture
• Academic research and speaking tasks: presentation, discussions, and role plays
• A Teacher's Pack for busy instructors with:
  • Suggested bonus activities
  • Teaching notes

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).

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.