The number of non-native students studying in English-medium universities has increased over the past decade. Paralleling this growth is the interest in English for Academic Purposes (EAP). No one research-based volume has yet investigated the theoretical issues and pedagogical concerns of the area. This wide-ranging volume of specially commissioned articles from leading scholars in the field aims to bring to the wider community current research in the field and its implications for pedagogy. It offers a state-of-the-art representation of research in EAP and will help define the field in the coming years.

This collection of original papers comprehensively addresses the area of second language academic listening. The papers are grouped under five broad headings. The first section provides an overview of research relevant to second language lecture comprehension. The second analyses aspects of the cognitive processes involved in listening comprehension. In the third section, the object of the comprehension process is examined, and in the fourth, ethnographic approaches are explored by extending the concept of listening comprehension to place it in the wider context of 'the culture of learning'. In the final section, the theory of second language listening comprehension is related to practical pedagogic concerns. Each section is preceded by an accessible introduction and the book as a whole provides detailed coverage of important aspects of academic listening phenomena.