It can also be used independently as an intensive preparation course to improve students’ level before starting the Focus on IELTS course.
There must be some famous bit of market research that I don’t know about going around ELT editors’ offices at the moment, because two different publishing companies have used the word “Foundation” to describe IELTS books that came out at almost exactly the same time. This is a review of one of the two, and also the story of my quest to find out what “Foundation” was supposed to mean to us all!
Starting with the back cover of the students’ book,
Focus on IELTS Foundationgives me no more information on its purpose than to say it is “ideal preparation for the
Focus on IELTS course but can also be used independently”. There could be more information in the teachers’ book, but I did not have access to it. The first thing I should say about
Focus on IELTS Foundation, then, is that it does, indeed, achieve that first, limited aim of being an introductionary course for
Focus on IELTS. The author has obviously been very careful not to double up on the language covered in
Focus on IELTS and although the level is still fairly high it has been made easier by the use of simplified and shorter reading and listening texts. The problem with a textbook that is designed primarily not to clash with another in the series can often be that it is left with all the least suitable and/or interesting language points and topics to cover - in the way that you can sometimes spot which textbook in a series was written last just from the uninspiring and/or obscure unit titles, so I did have that question at the back of my mind when I started looking at it. The other question to judge this book’s success on is whether the choice of points and how they are covered does provide ‘a solid grounding in the key language and skills’ (quote from back cover) needed to move on to the next level and/or to take the exam or simply fill in some gaps that are not covered elsewhere.
Focus on IELTS Foundation is divided into 12 units, with some typically academic sounding IELTS topics (Earth Matters, Animal Rights and Wrongs, Appropriate Technology). This might be a good time to point out that the book does not cover the General Training modules (although again that information is hidden away inside the book) so academic topics are vital for students to cover. There are also some more general sounding topics (Read All About It, Communications) and one very obscure sounding one (Buildings and Structures). Each unit covers Speaking, Grammar and Vocabulary, and alternate units cover Reading, with the others covering Listening and Writing.
- Guided practice for all four skills
- Tips on how to improve your performance in all four skills
- Extra grammar and vocabulary practice in each unit
- Tips to help with special areas of difficulty
- Language input for speaking and writing
- Guidance on assessing your speaking and writing
- Four Progress Checks to ensure understanding of key language and skills
- Detailed Answer Keyand audio scripts
Download Link (Cambridge IELTS 6 )
