Abstract
An increasing number of universities in China have offered EAP (English for Academic Purposes) to university students. However, issues as to what and how to teach academic English to freshman non-English majors remain unaddressed. This paper, adopted secondary research method, is intended to explore the deficiency Chinese college students may have in participating in communication in the academic community. The result shows that inability to think critically, lack of genre awareness, deficiency in understanding features of academic discourse and the linguistic features of English scientific and technical papers, improper literature citation and inaccurate expression of stance are a major threat to academic progress and success. The paper suggests that six aspects of academic awareness should be raised, and academic skills related be developed when EAP program is offered to freshman non-English majors, in hope of providing insights for the effective implementation of academic English teaching in China.
Highlights
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is a variant of English used by academic researchers for knowledge construction, information exchange and academic communication to advance their disciplines (Wei, 2016)
The paper suggests that six aspects of academic awareness should be raised, and academic skills related be developed when EAP program is offered to freshman non-English majors, in hope of providing insights for the effective implementation of academic English teaching in China
It can be categorized into English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998)
Summary
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is a variant of English used by academic researchers for knowledge construction, information exchange and academic communication to advance their disciplines (Wei, 2016). In China, EAP courses are carried out by English teachers who had basic knowledge of ESP genre pedagogy, employing various foreign teaching models such as genre pedagogy, data-driven learning, research writing groups, for the purpose of helping postgraduate publish research papers in English (Lei & Li, 2019). These content-based pedagogies, in which teachers need to have a deep disciplinary background (de Chazal, 2014), aimed to establish an explicit connection between language skills and disciplinary content, are not very effective, because students still cannot write academic papers in English in the correct style (Zhang, 2010; Luo, 2001). Combined with the author’s teaching practice, this paper, through secondary research, is intended to explore the issues as to what awareness to be raised and how to develop the related skills by the freshman non-English majors, in the hope of providing insights for the effective implementation of academic English teaching in China
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