Market Leader Intermediate New Edition

Components reviewed: Course Book / Class CDs
Authors: David Cotton, David Falvey and Simon Kent
Publisher: Pearson Longman

Firstly, this isn’t a new text (New Edition first published in 2005) and although I won’t go so far as to call it ‘timeless’, it definitely warrants a review on TEFL.net. One thing is for sure: many teachers agree that Market Leader is a great book. But what makes it so? And what classes is it suitable for?

Starting with the structure of the text, it has fourteen units and two revision units. A typical unit has a ‘starting up’ section which provides for discussion and includes vocabulary on the unit theme as well as a short listening to follow-up and build on the discussion. Sometimes this section can generate so much speaking that it takes up a short class by itself!

This is followed by a reading text and a listening text. These are one of the key selling points of the book. The written texts are semi-authentic / authentic texts from The Financial Times newspaper. They are stimulating and add face validity to the text, as well as being accompanied by skills- and lexis-based tasks. The audio texts are graded well and, in most cases, sound wholly natural and unstilted. The tasks are broken up into manageable chunks and the audio-scripts provide support for further exploitation of the texts.

The Language Review section is grammar- or lexico-grammar-focused and is accompanied by a grammar reference at the back of the book. One thing about this section is that it often seems a little short, particularly for classes with students who are grammar oriented. The balance between skills is appropriate overall but I often find myself searching for extra material to practice the language points. The newer Language Leader series, aimed at general English (also reviewed in this section), has a more developed grammar section at the back which gets around this problem nicely.

The skills sections usually include a listening task to notice ‘useful language’ and give the students a task, usually a role-play, in which to use the new functional exponents. Again, this section can seem short and I think a few extension activities are needed to get students really using a number of the language items. This means the teacher often has to think up other role play situations to maximize use of the language.

At the end of each unit comes a key section: the case-study. These are good to get students really using language in a ‘real-life’ business situation. They can take up a good portion of a lesson if fully developed. They also include a follow-up writing task. Unfortunately, the writing focus is rather light in the coursebook and it seems to take a back-seat, which in my opinion denies students sufficient opportunity to practice this highly important skill and consolidate other vocabulary and grammar presented in the text. The workbook does, however, make up for this shortfall somewhat by having some writing work included in most units (but I’m not reviewing the workbook!) Also, the ‘writing file’ at the back is helpful for providing genre models (emails, formal letters, reports, faxes and so on) and tips based on important features and common learner errors.

I have tried to highlighted the main points which make this textbook so popular among English teachers (that I’ve spoken to at least). Overall, the book suits small business classes and is sophisticated enough to satisfy business learners at all levels of their respective professions. The topics are of broad interest to  a wide variety of business professionals and students of business alike. To conclude, you may be hard pushed to find a better Business English coursebook in today’s EFL marketplace.