Graduate-level research writing instruction: Two Chinese EAP teachers’ localized ESP genre-based pedagogy

Abstract

Genre-oriented graduate-level research writing instruction is increasingly being implemented in universities around the world, to cater for the widely-felt demand to provide graduate writing support to student populations of immensely diverse compositions. In China, where research writing instruction for graduate students across disciplines is urgently needed, emerging EAP teachers are learning the ropes of genre-based pedagogies through practice. This paper reports a case study of how two novice EAP teachers, who had attended a professional development program, went about conducting research writing instruction to doctoral students at their own universities in China. Our dataset consisted of audio-recordings of the focal teachers’ classroom instruction, various types of documentary data, and interview data. We present the findings with a comparison between the two cases of pedagogical practices, by highlighting the distinguishing features of the focal teachers’ classroom instruction, and illuminating their instruction on language. Our study contributes to the limited literature on EAP research writing instruction and will inform EAP teachers’ training and professional development.