In the Community: An Intermediate Integrated Skills Textbook

Reviewed by Sarah Bauer, ESOL Faculty, Portland Community College, Portland, Oregon on 6/19/18

Comprehensiveness rating: 4

In the Community is described as an integrated skills textbook for high intermediate learners. The introduction to the book states five objectives, among them “recognize how people interpret spoken and written messages” and “adjust how we speak to different listeners and write for different readers”. In other words, the textbook has a special emphasis on pragmatics, or how people express and interpret messages in specific contexts. Because of this emphasis on communication in context, the text seems most appropriate for a class with a Listening/Speaking focus, especially since the readings and writings are mostly short communicative formats, such as emails, brief reports, etc. The book covers a wide variety of cultural and social contexts, and gives practice in recognizing and producing language appropriately for formal and informal situations. The global approach to communication is balanced with intensive practice on isolated elements of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.
Two positive features of the text are the many opportunities it offers for learners to be reflective and to apply their learning outside the classroom. Each chapter begins and wraps up with an activity where students describe their own communication style and reflect on how this relates to their personality or their cultural origin. Similarly, the book encourages students to transfer their learning to their daily life through ‘language logs’. As they move through the book, students note down words and expressions they learned in each chapter and either then heard or tried to use themselves in the real world. These two unique features support the text’s overall goal of effective communication in different social and cultural contexts.
A glossary of words and expressions is available at the end of each chapter, and these are listed together in a comprehensive glossary as one of the appendices to the book. Unfortunately, the text offers neither a scope and sequence nor an index of terms for the book. Each chapter’s table of contents references only section headings. Thus, a teacher or student would have to scroll through the whole book in order to locate, for example, an activity to practice question tags, or any other specific content.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The explicit presentations of vocabulary, grammar forms, and pronunciation elements are all error-free. Content related to the storyline and topics also appears to be accurate and unbiased.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The story setting - a group of people organizing a music festival at a campground - feels very up-to-date. This imagined setting allows the book to bring in many current issues and realistic conversation contexts, like gathering community suggestions for the festival, or protecting the natural environment etc. However, many of the Reading sections draw on formats familiar in social media, such as text messages or comment forums; since these formats tend to change rapidly, it is possible that some parts of the book will look outdated in a short period of time. On the positive side, the modular structure of the text would allow the authors to easily update the Reading sections with similar content that had a more modern look in the future, if necessary.

Clarity rating: 5

The text exposes students to natural, everyday language, including many slang and idiomatic expressions. All new words and expressions are presented in communication contexts and are explained in a glossary at the end of each chapter, as well as in the appendix. In addition, the textbook highlights important communication elements of any new items, such as formal v. informal usage, etc. The instructions for individual activities are written in prose that is clear for intermediate to advanced level students. A feature of the text that ensures clarity is the inclusion of objectives outlined at the beginning of each chapter, which are also re-visited at the end of the chapter when learners self-assess whether the objectives have been met.

Consistency rating: 5

The textbook maintains consistency throughout by following the same layout with identical order and similar types of activities for each chapter. Activities and sections that appear in every chapter are referred to with the same terminology, and online activities (listenings, videos, fillable pdfs) are identified with identical symbols in each chapter. There is also consistency within each chapter, as the theme in focus is clearly evident in every skill and sub-skill throughout that chapter.

Modularity rating: 4

The text is intended to be used in a modular fashion. Each chapter is separated into four modules that correspond to the four language skills - Reading Writing Listening and Speaking. While the chapter has a main theme, such as making requests or expressing obligations, the four modules are meant to be independent enough to be used as stand-alone lessons.
At the same time, the choice to base everything on a storyline with an element of character development limits how modularly a teacher can use the textbook. Even the grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation exercises reference the background story and characters in a chapter. Thus, a teacher is forced to at least use the introductory video for the chapter in order to establish the story context and character relationships for all of the subsequent activities.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

Organization and structure are one of the strengths of this book. Each chapter presents a language function, such as apologies or opinions, in the context of a realistic life situation. The chapters are all divided in the same way between Reading, Listening followed by Speaking, Writing. All of the activities, vocabulary, pronunciation and other elements within the chapter relate to the same storyline and theme. This design provides a logical flow and makes the material easy to follow, especially in the case where a student may be using the book individually for self-study. Similarly, the structure would aid a teacher in planning lessons for a class when using the textbook as a whole.

Interface rating: 3

The book is downloadable as a pdf with interactive links when used online. Students can print the textbook to have a physical copy, or they can use the book from a computer or tablet. The symbols linking to listenings and fillable pdfs open seamlessly from the main textbook page. Even learners with limited digital experience could manage this online textbook without losing their way.
Unfortunately, some elements did not work as expected. Above all, a number of the videos in the second half of the book (starting in Chapter 3 on p. 136) went to a 404 not found page. Attempts with a variety of search terms in YouTube did not bring up the videos, meaning these activities would be unusable until this problem is resolved. In addition, a few individual listening items within some exercises did not play. Finally, although the introductory video says that students can click on underlined words to see a definition, this feature was not functioning.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text is free of grammatical errors. American users should note that the book follows Canadian English usage, which means some variation in spelling (‘honour’ etc.) and idiomatic phrases.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

One of the main focuses of the book is how people modulate communication to fit conversation partners and/or situations. As a result, the text makes a great effort to include a variety of ethnicities, ages and genders, and to show them in varying and non-traditional roles. There is also some attempt to include varieties of spoken English through characters with different backgrounds. The topics and situations are realistic and broad, including music, ecology and management.

This textbook is enjoyable and engaging. It feels very connected to real-life, both through the characters and situations presented and the extension activities which encourage students to take their learning outside the classroom. Learners would likely find the material entertaining and motivating when employed as part of an English-language communication class.