1. Sherrie
Lee
slideshare.net/orangecanton
@orangecanton
teachersherrie.wordpress.com
ESL Textbook Review
Headway Academic Skills 3: Reading, Writing, and Study Skills Student's Book
Sarah Pilpot and Lesley Curnick
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
SHERRIE LEE
Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore
Headway Academic Skills 3: Reading, Writing, and Study Skills Student's Book by
Sarah Pilpot and Lesley Curnick aims to equip students in higher education with a
comprehensive range of academic skills ranging from vocabulary strategies to essay
planning in ten tightly packed units. It is an impressive and ambitious plan but will likely
cause the student to be overwhelmed.
Description
The ten units in Headway Academic Skills 3 cover the following topics: education
and learning, health and medicine, urban planning, natural resources, international trade,
history conservation, modern engineering, the Olympics, describing statistics and trends,
and communication and technology. Each unit covers academic skills in four main
sections in the following sequence: reading, language for writing, writing and vocabulary
development. In three of the units, the topic of research skills is covered as well. At the
end of each unit is a review section which brings together the reading and writing skills
learned in the unit. The main sections generally follow the presentation, practice and
production (PPP) approach (Shehadeh, 2005, p. 14), that is, the presentation of specific
language items and/or reading or writing strategies (termed “study skills” in the book) is
followed by practice through exercises such as gap fill, spotting language features and
completing graphic organizers, and finally the production stage where students use the

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target language and skills with less guidance. The review section itself serves as an
overall production stage where students are expected to reproduce the language items and
study skills covered in the unit more independently. The appendix contains a word list of
the main vocabulary used, complete with word class and pronunciation. There is a
separate Teacher’s Guide which contains tests and additional activities but is not part of
this review.
Intended Audience
According to the book summary, Headway Academic Skills 3 functions as a
bridge between general and academic English, and can be used either independently or
alongside a general English course. While it does not specify the proficiency level of
students, the book will be helpful to both native speakers, as well as advanced ESL
students who have just begun university.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The overall goal of Headway Academic Skills 3 is to equip students in higher
education with academic skills such as note-taking and essay-writing, as stated in the
book summary. However, since the units are content driven rather than skills driven,
there is more breadth than depth in the treatment of academic skills. One exemption is
reading skills which are adequately explored in each unit, as well as reinforced across
units, highlighting strategies related to external text features (e.g. skimming and scanning
for information), as well as internal text features (e.g. text structure and signal words).
Other skills like writing and vocabulary development, however, are not as well
integrated; the language features and strategies are introduced once in the unit but are
hardly mentioned again in other units, thus limiting students’ opportunities for

3. ESL TEXTBOOK REVIEW 3
developing those skills. Furthermore, the PPP approach, as stated by Shehadeh (2005),
does not allow students to develop both accuracy and fluency in using language items as
students tend to either end up focusing primarily on form and not fluency or focus
primarily on meaning without incorporating the target language at all (pp. 14-15). Thus
the lack of integration of academic skills across units and the weakness of the PPP
approach undermine the very purpose of the book.
Apart from its main weakness of not providing integrated and appropriate
opportunities for students to fully develop academic skills, the book also features topics
which may be too impersonal for young adults to identify with. While the topics represent
diverse cultures and are appropriate for a higher education audience, the approach taken
does not lead students to be personally interested in the material. Activities revolve
around the given reading passages or writing tasks with few opportunities for students to
provide their viewpoints or creatively interact with the material provided. This lack of
personal interaction is reinforced by the largely similar nature of the tasks such as
underlining words and phrases, filling in gaps and matching items with corresponding
answers.
Despite its instructional flaws, Headway Academic Skills 3 offers several
strengths. One of them is the use of near authentic materials such as journal articles, news
reports and letter to capture the range of expository writing material a university student
would likely to be exposed to. Even though some of the materials were probably re-
written with a more appropriate level of grammar and vocabulary, it is more important for
the materials to be more easily understood while simulating authenticity than for

4. ESL TEXTBOOK REVIEW 4
materials to be presented in its original but less comprehensible form, especially for
students who struggle with such texts (Flowerdew & Peacock, 2001, p. 185).
Another strength is that the book can be adapted for use with either native English
speakers or ESL students. While ESL students would probably appreciate the
straightforward and simplified language used, all students will find it beneficial to learn
specific reading and writing strategies. For first language students, teachers can consider
using more challenging supplementary reading material for students to practice their
academic skills.
Finally, Headway Academic Skills 3 does well in having visually appealing
graphics and layout. For example, most of the photos used are clear, colorful and
informative. In terms of the layout, the different sections are color-coded for easy
reference. In addition, important information like study skills and language rules are
highlighted in boxes and placed at the side so as not to interrupt the flow of the text.
However, one minor complaint I have about the layout is that there is hardly any white
space on each page and the limited spacing between tasks and sections. Thus the reader
will find it difficult to focus on the text at first glance.
Conclusion
Headway Academic Skills 3 succeeds in introducing a comprehensive range of
reading and writing skills and strategies but falls short in providing integrated and
meaningful practice across the units for students to master the skills. While the brightly
colored photos and pages may standout, those elements will not be sufficient to engage
students. Teachers who choose to use the book may make up for the lack of depth in the
coverage of academic skills by being selective about which language items and strategies

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to focus on and bring their students’ attention to these items in other units in the book or
with supplementary material. Alternatively, teachers may design their own lessons and
use the book’s activities as supplementary material. Either way, teachers should not
overlook what is useful in the book for their purposes in teaching academic skills.

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References
Flowerdew, J., Peacock, M. (2001). The EAP curriculum: Issues, methods, and
challenges. In J. Flowerdew M. Peacock (Eds.), Research perspectives on English
for academic purposes (pp. 177-194). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Philpot, S. & Curnick, L. (2011). Headway academic skills 3: Reading, writing, and study
skills student's book. In L. Soars & J. Soars (Series Eds.), Headway academic
skills. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shehadeh, A. (2005). Task-based language learning and teaching: Theories and
applications. In C. Edwards J. Willis (Eds.), Teachers exploring tasks in English
language teaching (pp. 13-30). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.