It has become a bit of a cliché in OET circles that students and teachers alike face a lack of high-quality preparation materials; a new title by a well-respected author in the field is therefore bound to cause excitement. OET Speaking and Writing Skills Builder (Nursing and Medicine) by Ros Wright is aimed at both self-study and classroom settings and with its focus on the development of techniques required for the speaking and writing OET sub-tests (nursing and medicine), will be welcomed by both independent learners and classroom teachers. It is the companion title to OET Reading & Listening Skills Builder (All Professions), which I have reviewed separately, and this review looks both at the print and the Digibook editions of the book. Like the Reading and Listening book, OET Speaking and Writing Skills Builder was written with input from two medical advisers, who are credited on the front covers.
Organisation of the book
As companion texts, it is perhaps surprising that the organisation of the Writing and Speaking book differs from that found in the Reading & Listening text. In OET Speaking & Writing Skills Builder, there are eight rather than ten topic-focused units, such as respiratory (covered in Units 1 & 4), endocrinology and psychiatry. There is no cross over with the Reading and Listening book in terms of unit topics, meaning autonomous learners and students on a long-stay exam preparation course using the books side by side may find themselves dealing with two distinct topics at the same time. However, this does mean that they also gain exposure to a greater range of topics.
Each unit opens with an OET Speaking section, which looks at the skills required to meet the clinical communication aspects of the Speaking sub-test and patient-centred care in the workplace. There is then a Medical Focus section linked to the unit’s topic, sections dealing with Grammatical Expression and Lexis and finally OET Writing. This final section makes significant use of the SBAR framework and also helps students to make principled choices when selecting which information to include in an OET letter. The grammar and lexis areas are largely well chosen, covering the language which many OET candidate struggle with such as articles, softening questions and asking for consent; four sections on dependent prepositions out of eight for Lexis does feel a little imbalanced, notwithstanding the issues many learners face with this language point. Additionally, given the C1 level of OET, the tense review sections seem pitched a little low.
Additional sources
The book is rich in additional resources, audio scripts and answer keys, including some very useful case notes, sample letters and speaking role play cards and a grammar reference, making the book ideal for self-study. I particularly liked the sample letters with their detailed annotations highlighting good practice and the additional further commentaries although I was surprised to see one sample letter of 221 words described as being of an appropriate length given that OET asks test takers write a letter of between 180 to 200 words.
Editions
The print edition is attractively laid out in full colour and the pages breathe well thanks to plenty of white space. Additional bite-size hints about exam strategies are presented in the frequent blue Test Tip boxes and are a strength. Learning objectives for each of the five sections are given at the beginning of each unit; the addition of some kind of review activity or reflective task at the end of each unit or cycle of three units would have been a welcome addition.
All of the book’s contents can be accessed through Express Publishing’s own online platform and Digibooks app. Pleasingly, the code for this online version is provided at no extra charge, bound in with the hard copy edition, and for student accounts is valid for 15 months from the activation date; teachers on the other hand can re-activate the apps for free. CD recordings of the audio tracks are available separately for a small charge of just under 8 Euros. A stand-alone digibook edition is available, with a 15% reduction on the price of the printed edition.
User experience
The user experience for students is mixed. Students who are studying on their own will welcome the opportunity to access the whole book, including the audio recordings, on a PC or a mobile device at no extra charge and the flexibility this offers is clearly welcome. The digibook edition has flexible navigation, with each activity on its own page. These are accessed linearly using back and forward arrows or via a drop-down menu which makes it easy to jump to a specific exercise anywhere in the book. However, as these pages are labelled with the exercise number only (e.g. Exercise 6.2), it is not self-evident how each activity relates to the five parts of the unit (Speaking, Medical Focus, Grammatical Expression, Lexis and OET Writing). Also, the first number does not correspond to the unit number, making quick navigation difficult. Hopefully, this is an issue that the digibook team can address easily in the future. The serif font used looks dated and the non-responsive nature of the page frame means there is often a lot of empty white space in shorter exercises, giving a rather dated user experience. On a mobile phone, this lack of non-responsive design meant that I had to place my device on its side to fit the page on screen: holding the phone normally meant constant scrolling left to right. Answers requiring me to type in a word were also problematic: many mobiles default to capitals for the first word in a new field, but the system automatically marks as wrong a correctly spelled word with an erroneous first capital letter.
Teachers using the digibook to project via a projector or an interactive board/panel will welcome the opportunity to project these unit segments and this will work equally well in face-to-face, online or in hybrid classes. However, the publisher seems to have overcomplicated its LMS, with a hierarchy of users (student, teacher, school manager, school master and parent), each with its own lengthy user manual. I have not been able to trial this with a group of students, but there are options for progress reporting, homework and assignment setting and even attendance checking.
Conclusion
OET Speaking & Writing Skills Builder (Nursing and Medicine) is a welcome addition to the slowly growing choice of materials available to teachers and students who are studying independently. Its focus on speaking and writing skills development meets the needs of candidates who are not familiar with the requirements of the relevant OET sub-tests and while the middle sections are sometimes pitched low, they are described as optional. As I wrote for my review of the companion Reading and Listening book, many students preparing for OET fall into the trap of thinking that exam practice alone is the key to exam success and this book provides something different and for that it deserves praise and success.
Published 2020, Express Publishing.
160 pages; 31,79 Euros for print book and digital access currently reduced to 25,43 Euros (or 25,43 Euros currently reduced to 20,34 Euros for the digibook only); Audio CDs 7,95 Euros
ISBN-10: 1-4715-8694-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-4715-8694-1
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