UNITS

Language centre. Library guide. English for academic purposes.

This is not a lending library, so you can only use the library material in the language centre. The library is on two floors. On the second floor is the library collection. Here there are self-study rooms where you can watch television, VHS and DVD videos. On the first floor you will find the computers. There are self-study rooms here where you can use the cassette tapes. The easiest way to find library material is to browse the shelves or to consult our card index catalogue. All library material is classified alphabetically by language. The shelf mark for English is EFL – English as a foreign language. Library material is also classified by type of material, so there is a cassette tape section, a video section or a book section in two parts – one for reference and one for textbooks.

Books. Reference.

The reference collection at the beginning of the book collection consists of dictionaries, reference grammars, grammars with exercises, vocabulary builders, both subject specific and general and books on writing style.

The English for academic purposes collection focuses on academic writing, examinations textbooks, miscellaneous works and phonetics.

Examinations

There are a lot of self-study books to prepare you for examinations such as CAE, CPE, ILES and TOFEL as well as the American GRE – Graduate Record Examination. Many of these have accompanying tapes. For example, the Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English will have the following shelf marks EFL (shelf mark for English), CCC (17 to 20) shelf mark for tapes starting with C.

Textbooks

The textbooks are classified alphabetically by title. There are sections on listening and speaking. Most textbooks will be accompanied by tapes and sometimes also by video and computer-assisted language learning material. A shelf mark on the textbook will indicate whether the textbooks have accompanying material, for example, the textbook “Inside Out”, which will be found under the letter I, will have the following shelf marks: EFL shelf mark for English, CIV (1 to 2) shelf mark for tapes starting with C. EFL VCJ 1 shelf mark for videos starting with V . The textbook “Inside Out” is accompanied by 2 tapes and one video.

Literature

There is a small section on literature. Some of the books have tapes to go with them.

Miscellaneous

Here you will find books about British culture.

Phonetics

The Phonetics books will help you with English pronunciation. The shelf mark is PHE – PH for phonetics, Е - for English. Most of the books have accompanying cassettes that you will find at the end of the EFL cassette section. Some of these books contain guidance on pronunciation exercises for students of particular nationalities. One example is “English Pronunciation in Use” by Mark Hancock.

Newspapers and journals

There are no specific newspapers and journals for English learners although the library has such publications as “The Radio Times” and “Oxford Today” which you may want to read.

Electronic resources

These are only available to Oxford University stuff and students.

Electronic reference

Dictionaries will be found on oxlib – Oxford library’s information platform. Click on dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference works, you will find the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), xrefer plus, credo reference, which offers three dictionaries and two thesauruses. Click on the dictionaries, and for reference works on idioms, phrases and favels under language, Blackwell reference online where you can find many encyclopedias. The language center website also offers a selection of reference material.

Electronic newspaper

These can be found on oxlib – Oxford library’s information platform. Click on newspapers, you will find The Economist historical archive from 1843 to 2003, The Financial Times, the LexisNexis news service. The language center website also offers a selection of newspapers available online and its language links pages.

Electronic journals

These can be found on oxlib – Oxford library’s information platform. Click on English, then journals and newspapers. You can also click on Oxford University e-journals where you can do a search by title or browse by title within the subject, arts and humanities, some category language and linguistics, or do a search by citation where you can search by the articles or the author’s name.

Computer-assisted language learning

If the material you are looking for is not networked ask the librarian for a CD-ROM.