The EAP Toolkit, which we have developed and licensed since 2004, is our flagship resource for students.
The EAP (English for Academic Purposes) Toolkit is a comprehensive collection of resources and activities that are designed to improve students' academic English and study skills, primarily in a higher education setting. It provides over 100 hours of learning materials and can either be used as an independent study tool or integrated into teaching in the classroom. It has recently undergone a major refreshment and expansion, with the new, upgraded version now available!
Licensing the EAP Toolkit
Licences for the EAP Toolkit are available for institutions to purchase, starting at £1750 for a year for up to 2000 staff and student users, with discounted annual costs for longer licences. The Toolkit can be delivered via our website or, for UK-based institutions taking out a licence of 2 years or longer, through an institutional VLE.
VAT is not applicable for licences to educational institutions, but is added for other organisations.
What's in the EAP Toolkit?
The content is divided into seven folders - click a title to see a full contents list for each:
Identifying the academic skills you need
Managing your study time
Setting your own goals and targets
The best conditions for learning
Planning how to meet your workload
Prioritising study tasks
Recognising your own approach to study
Active and reflective learning skills
Using tutor feedback to improve
Learning logs and reflective journals
Working with other people
Dictionary use and your learning
Evaluating different types of dictionary
Understanding stress
Managing stress
Understanding essay titles
Improving your paragraphs with topic sentences
Structuring your writing
Using examples to support written statements
Expressing fact and opinion in writing
Introduction to describing graphs and tables
Describing trends and change in graphs
Interpreting trends in graphs
Comparing data in graphs
Reporting verbs for academic writing
Finding out about plagiarism
Identifying plagiarism and avoiding poor practice
Recognising style features of academic writing
Introduction to quoting and paraphrasing
Using quotations
Using paraphrase in writing
Understanding reference lists and bibliographies
Describing types of source in reference lists
Compiling a reference list
The role of the introduction in academic writing
Creating cohesion in your writing
Typical language that academic writers use
Using appropriate levels of complexity and formality
Improving paragraph structure
Editing paragraphs for coherence and unity
Introduction to revising your written work
Practise revising written work
Introduction to writing conclusions
Understanding conclusions
Writing an effective conclusion
Proofreading a text
Presenting your written work
Introduction to reading skills
Prediction strategies for reading
Introduction to speed reading
Introduction to scanning
Scanning for specific information
Reading to identify main points
Skim reading and its uses
Skim-reading practice
Reading and critical thinking
Analysing the elements of an argument
Identifying text types
Evaluating sources
Good practice in note-taking to avoid plagiarism
Recognising fact, opinion and evidence in text
How to take good notes while listening
Prediction skills for listening
Using clues to understand lectures
Listening closely to presentations
Listening for signposting language
Focusing on the language in a lecture
Listening for and understanding new vocabulary
Listening for theme words and examples
Practising listening skills for lectures
Listening for key points in a science lecture
Recording data
Listening to a complex description
Listening to understand more difficult language
Speaking in an academic context
Taking part in seminars and group tutorials
Contrasting spoken and written language
Communicating in seminars
Listening and speaking in seminars
How to deliver an oral presentation
Useful language for oral presentations
Speaking without hesitating
Sound linking in speech
Word and sentence stress
Unstressed aspects of pronunciation
Checking and clarifying when speaking
Contractions in speech
Recognising academic register
Communicating online
Communicating politely across cultures
The effect of culture in communication
Cultural stereotypes and generalisations in communication
Language and grammar for cause and effect
Understanding choice of tense
Reviewing verb groups
Structures for expressing purpose
Impersonal style and the passive form
When to use an article with a noun phrase
Assessing yourself on articles
Modal verbs and their meanings
Modal verbs in writing
Using noun phrases instead of clauses
Forming complex noun phrases
Writing sentences with complex noun phrases
Reviewing dependent prepositions
Verbs followed by gerunds or infinitives
Changing the emphasis in a sentence
Using the comma
Using colons and semi-colons
Reviewing punctuation
Introduction to hedging or cautious language
Recognising and using cautious language
The sentence
Simple and more complex sentences
Introduction to vocabulary learning
Building your vocabulary
Concordancing for vocabulary development
Language for classifying
Forming words with prefixes and suffixes
Homophones, homonyms and homographs
Confusable words
Introduction to abstract vocabulary
Stylistic effects of abstract vocabulary
The importance of semi-technical vocabulary
Phrasal verbs
Finding clear and concise language
Choosing the right vocabulary for academic writing
Using idiomatic language
Researching specialist vocabulary
Additionally, we are implementing study pathways and a tagging system to help guide students through sections of the Toolkit. We also provide materials to help institutions to promote the Toolkit to their students.
If you would like to organise a one-week free trial of the EAP Toolkit for a small number of staff, please contact us at elang1@soton.ac.uk
What do users think?
What licensing institutions and teachers say:
"Excellent materials. The content has stood the test of time."
"Many of my students used the EAP Toolkit outside of class and I saw an improvement in their essays."
"It has been an invaluable resource for us over the years and long may it continue to be so."
"I think it is an excellent resource. It was so gratifying to find back-up and practice exercises for almost everything we covered during the course."
What students say:
"The topics and activities are good and useful. Everything is covered."
"The visual elements in activities like charts, graphs and the feedback parts were really practical and useful."
"It is a huge source that especially international students can profit a lot. I am happy to study with it."
"It is simple and organised very easy to follow. Categories are well-ordered so it's easy to find what I am looking for."
View summary of research into attitudes and uses by institutions, teachers and students:
I'm a student - can I use the EAP Toolkit without buying a licence?
As an individual user, you can either use the Toolkit at a licensing institution or purchase access to a set of resources from the Toolkit using our Pay, Access and Learn system. You can also contact your institution to see if they have a licence, and if not, why not encourage them to purchase one?
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