The Success of an EAP Programme in Tertiary Education: Using a Student-Centric Approach to Scaffold Materials in an EAP

Misty So-Sum Wai Cook

doi:10.22158/selt.v7n2p213

Abstract

Researchers and practitioners who focus on academic writing in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses have reported on the need to equip students with the necessary knowledge and skills to deal with academic writing across different disciplines in tertiary education (Rinnert & Kobayashi, 2005; Shi, 2011; Thompson, 2013). Previous research (e.g., Crosthwaite, 2016) has predominantly measured students’ progress in an EAP by comparing students’ pre- and post-course scores of individual language/writing skills. Much less has been reported on the effectiveness of a detailed EAP curriculum design that scaffolds skills in stages. This study contributes to the current EAP research by examining holistically the impact of a 12-week EAP course that adopts a reading-to-write, student-centric approach to scaffold progressively difficult writing skills/knowledge to help students acquire academic writing skills by focusing on three core skills: language, text organisation, and content development. The data of this study show students’ perceptions of their writing abilities and the significant improvement in academic writing skills before and after completing the course.

Highlights

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) refers to the language and associated practices that students need to study in English medium higher education (Hyland, 2006)
The objective of an EAP course that focuses on academic writing is to provide a curriculum that equips students with the essential academic writing knowledge and skills related to the range of genres across the disciplines (Hyland & Bondi, 2006)
3.1 Participants Participants in this study were taught by the two researchers in a 12-week non-credit bearing EAP course at the Centre for English Language Communication (CELC) at the National University of Singapore (NUS)

Summary

Introduction

EAP refers to the language and associated practices that students need to study in English medium higher education (Hyland, 2006). The objective of an EAP course that focuses on academic writing is to provide a curriculum that equips students with the essential academic writing knowledge and skills related to the range of genres across the disciplines (Hyland & Bondi, 2006). Though studies have separately shown students’ improvement in individual writing skills at the end of an EAP course (e.g., Crosthwaite, 2016), more research is needed on students’ holistic improvement on essential academic writing skills such as language, text organisation, and content development, as well as the materials and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/selt. The impact of the EAP course and how the materials are used to scaffold writing skills/knowledge according to difficulty levels in the course have not been reported. This study details an effective pedagogy to scaffold materials with increasing difficulty in a 12-week EAP course, and measures its impact on students’ academic writing skills such as language accuracy, text organisation, and organisation

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Discussion

Conclusion