Includes a glossary and transcripts.

"English for Accountancy is a skills-based course designed specifically for students of accountancy who are about to enter English-medium tertiary level studies. It provides carefully graded practice and progressions in the key academic skills that all students need, such as listening to lectures and speaking in seminars. It also equips students with the specialist management language they need to participate successfully within an accounting faculty. Extensive listening exercises come from accountancy lectures, and all reading texts are taken from the same field of study. There is also a focus throughout on the key accountancy vocabulary that students will need.

Listening: how to understand and take effective notes on extended lectures, including how to follow the argument and identify the speaker's point of view.

Speaking: how to participate effectively in a variety of realistic situations, from seminars to presentations, including how to develop an argument and use stance markers.

Reading: how to understand a wide range of texts, from academic textbooks to Internet articles, including how to analyze complex sentences and identify such things as the writer's stance.

Writing: how to produce coherent and well-structured assignments, including such skills as paraphrasing and the use of the appropriate academic phrases.

Vocabulary: a wide range of activities to develop students' knowledge and use of key vocabulary, both in the field of management and of academic study in general.

Vocabulary and Skills banks: a reference source to provide students with revision of the key words and phrases and skills presented in each unit" (Book Cover).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

UNIT 1 - What is accountancy? (Listening – Speaking)

TOPICS: Users of accountancy data - Branches of accountancy

VOCABULARY FOCUS: Words from general English with special meaning in accountancy - Prefixes and suffixes

SKILLS FOCUS
Listening: preparing for a lecture - predicting lecture content from the introduction - understanding lecture organization - choosing an appropriate form of notes - making lecture notes
Speaking: speaking from notes

UNIT 2 - Financial accounting (Reading – Writing)

TOPICS: Balance sheet - Profit and loss account - Cash flow statements

VOCABULARY FOCUS: English-English dictionaries: headwords, definitions, parts of speech, phonemes, stress markers, countable/uncountable, transitive/intransitive

SKILLS FOCUS
Reading: using research questions to focus on relevant information in a text - using topic sentences to get an overview of the text
Writing: writing topic sentences - summarizing a text

UNIT 3 - Management accounting (1) [Listening – Speaking]

TOPICS: Classification of costs - Budgetary control

VOCABULARY FOCUS: Stress patterns in multi-syllable words – Prefixes

SKILLS FOCUS
Listening: preparing for a lecture - predicting lecture content - making lecture notes - using different information sources
Speaking: reporting research findings - formulating questions

UNIT 4 - Computers in accounting (Reading – Writing)

TOPICS: Databases - Business intelligence

VOCABULARY FOCUS: Computer jargon - Abbreviations and acronyms - Discourse and stance markers - Verb and noun suffixes

SKILLS FOCUS
Reading: identifying topic development within a paragraph - using the Internet effectively - evaluating Internet search results
Writing: reporting research findings

UNIT 5 - The accounting profession (Listening – Speaking)

TOPICS: Technicians - Professional bodies - Public practice

VOCABULARY FOCUS: Words sets: synonyms, antonyms, etc. - The language of trends - Common lecture language

SKILLS FOCUS
Listening: understanding 'signpost language' in lectures - using symbols and abbreviations in note-taking
Speaking: making effective contributions to a seminar

UNIT 6 - Management accounting (2) [Reading – Writing]

TOPICS: Strategic management accounting - Control systems - Divisional performance measurement

VOCABULARY FOCUS: Synonyms, replacement subjects, etc., for sentence-level paraphrasing

SKILLS FOCUS
Reading: reporting findings from other sources: avoiding plagiarism - locating key information in complex sentences
Writing: writing complex sentences

UNIT 7 – Costing (Listening – Speaking)

TOPICS: Types of costing

VOCABULARY FOCUS: Compound nouns - Fixed phrases from management English - Fixed phrases from academic English - Common lecture language

SKILLS FOCUS
Listening: understanding speaker emphasis
Speaking: asking for clarification - responding to queries and requests for clarification

UNIT 8 – Auditing (Reading – Writing)

TOPICS: Development of auditing - Practical aspects

VOCABULARY FOCUS: Synonyms - Nouns from verbs – Definitions - Common 'direction' verbs in essay titles (discuss, analyze, evaluate, etc.)

SKILLS FOCUS
Reading: understanding dependent clauses with passives
Writing: paraphrasing - expanding notes into complex sentences - recognizing different essay types/structures: descriptive, analytical, comparison/evaluation, argument - writing essay plans - writing essays

UNIT 9 - Accounts, governance, regulation and management (Listening – Speaking)

TOPICS: Corporate governance - Contrasting schools of ethics - Regulation

VOCABULARY FOCUS: Fixed phrases from management English - Fixed phrases from academic English

SKILLS FOCUS
Listening: using the Cornell note-taking system - recognizing digressions in lectures Speaking: making effective contributions to a seminar - referring to other people's ideas in a seminar

UNIT 10 - Sources of finance (Reading – Writing)

TOPICS: How companies fund their activities

VOCABULARY FOCUS: 'Neutral' and 'marked' words - Fixed phrases from industrial relations - Fixed phrases from academic English

SKILLS FOCUS
Reading: recognizing the writer's stance and level of confidence or tentativeness - inferring implicit ideas Writing: writing situation-problem-solution-evaluation essays - using direct quotations - compiling a bibliography/reference list

UNIT 11 – Taxation (Listening – Speaking)

TOPICS: General introduction - Personal taxation - Business taxation

VOCABULARY FOCUS: Words/phrases used to link ideas (moreover, as a result, etc.) - Stress patterns in noun phrases and compounds - Fixed phrases from academic English

SKILLS FOCUS
Listening: recognizing the speaker's stance - writing up notes in full Speaking: building an argument in a seminar - agreeing/disagreeing

UNIT 12 - Financial management (Reading – Writing)

TOPICS: Mergers and acquisitions

VOCABULARY FOCUS: Verbs used to introduce ideas from other sources (X contends/suggests/asserts that ...) - Linking words/phrases conveying contrast (whereas), result (consequently), reasons (due to), etc. - Words for quantities (a significant minority)

SKILLS FOCUS
Reading: understanding how ideas in a text are linked Writing: deciding whether to use direct quotation or paraphrase - incorporating quotations - writing research reports - writing effective introductions/conclusions

Intended for students of accountancy who are about to enter English-medium tertiary level studies. Designed for students at the upper intermediate to proficient level (CEF B2 - C2).