Aligning genre and practice with learning in Higher Education: an interdisciplinary perspective for course design and teaching

Abstract

This paper offers a course design framework for teaching English (as a Foreign language) for Specific Academic Purposes in Higher Education (ESAP 1 1 ESAP refers to the branch of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in which students are learning English in order to be able support their study for specific degree courses [e.g. medicine or engineering; Jordan, R. R. (1997). English for academic purposes: a guide and resource book for teachers, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press]. /FL). The Genre-Aligned Practices (GAP) framework is essentially the result of our ongoing reflections on, in and for practice [ Cowan, J. (1998). On becoming an innovative university teacher, Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press; Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action, New York, Basic Books.] in which we have sought to integrate interdisciplinary research insights from applied linguistics (genre analysis), sociology of work (communities of practice) and tertiary teaching and learning (constructive alignment). The article first briefly describes the contextual influences of learning and teaching ESAP/FL in Portugal, then outlines the three research foundations on which the framework is based, and finally provides a practical example of the framework-in-action. It concludes with a discussion of the possible implications for an approach to teaching and course design in Higher Education which will foster students’ expression of an emerging professional identity and is aligned with course objectives, evaluation and the genres related to their future work practices.