The Forefront Achieving Academic Success – 1

The first book of the series, The Forefront, Achieving Academic Success 1, is designed to cater to the academic needs of first-year students in English-medium universities. The book follows an integrated skills approach aiming to give students practice in the basics of reading, listening, speaking, and writing for academic purposes. Central to the book's methodology are thematic reading and listening materials revolving around the theme of the human journey, which serve as input for the productive skills, speaking and especially writing, which are the two skills that the book mainly targets.

The activities in the book start from a basic comprehension level, gradually guiding students toward developing higher-order skills. Through engaging with various materials, students analyze,uate, react to, and synthesize information, finally generating their own pieces of writing by using these as reference materials.

Another aim of the book is to familiarize students with the world of academia in their first year of academic studies and help them adopt academic conventions when speaking and writing, which will prove useful in their academic journey ahead. To this end, extensive writing input has been included in the book, providing instructional scaffolding so that students can master the sub-skills and accomplish more autonomous and extended writing tasks.

The writing input is thoughtfully constructed, avoiding overgeneralized advice and providing detailed explanations by considering different fields of study where different rules may apply. It also appreciates disciplinary differences in writing styles, giving advice informed by linguistic findings.

We hope that the book will serve as a guide for both teachers and students, illuminating their path as they navigate the complex maze of the academic world.