EAP Teaching Research Articles

Teaching L2 Speaking: A Case Study of English for Academic Purpose Teachers’ Cognition and Practices

Do teachers truly demonstrate their knowledge, beliefs, and feelings about teaching L2 speaking? It is an important question to consider because teachers' cognition functions as an important element that EAP instructors should not overlook. This intrinsic case study attempts to demonstrate the disparities between teachers' perceptions of teaching L2 speaking that are both congruent and incongruent. To supplement the study's goal, one EAP teacher was interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire in which she shared her beliefs about L2 speaking. Following that, one of her lessons was observed using an observation protocol to determine the extent to which her stated beliefs manifested or differed from her classroom practises. To reach the conclusion, patterns in this raw data were matched using thematic analysis. This case study revealed that the observed EAP instructor failed to reflect her perceptions in the classroom while facilitating L2 speaking, despite the fact that her beliefs were reflected in some instances while her class.

Developing a Word Family-Based Depth of Academic Word Knowledge Test

<p style="text-align:justify">Despite the continued widespread use of the academic word list, there is a paucity of comprehensive and easily replicable tests which measure learners’ depth of knowledge of academic word list items. This paper outlines the development and initial validation of a test which measures multiple aspects of learners’ knowledge of academic vocabulary. The test comprises four sections – one productive knowledge section (sentence writing), and three receptive knowledge sections (collocations, synonyms, and L1 meaning). Each section includes 30 items selected from the academic word list, 10 of which are derived forms containing one or more affixes. The test was administered to 193 Japanese students studying at a public medical university in Japan. All four sections of the test showed a high level of internal consistency. In addition, the inter-rater reliability between the two different markers for the productive use (sentence writing) section was also moderately high. Furthermore, Rasch item analysis showed that the test items were well fitted to comprehensively measure learners’ knowledge of academic vocabulary. These encouraging initial results suggest that there may be merit in the test being used, evaluated, and possibly adapted in other EAP teaching and learning contexts.</p>

One Journal, Different Practices: A Corpus-Based Study of Interactive Metadiscourse in Applied Linguistics

Abstract Research articles are a primary medium for scholars to communicate with disciplinary community, but there is little evidence suggesting how much writing practices on different research subjects within a discipline diverge in a single journal. This study remedies the oversight by comparing the use of interactive metadiscourse in the papers of Applied Linguistics on language acquisition and discourse analysis. Based on a corpus of 30 research articles on each research subject, results show that writers in language acquisition make a significantly more frequent use of additive and consequential transitional markers, reformulators, and non-integral citations. However, discourse analysts prefer to invest in exemplifiers, linear and non-linear references and topic shifts. All the differences can be attributable to the characteristics of disciplinary research paradigms, which lead to different knowledge-making and interactive patterns in academic writing. The findings offer empirical evidence to the rhetorical function of metadiscourse in constructing disciplinary knowledge, and raise pedagogical implications for EAP instructors to help scholars in applied linguistics increase international publications.

Exploring Iranian EAP teachers’ well-being: an activity theory perspective

Despite the growth of research on EAP teachers in the past decade, little research has focused on their emotions and much less on their well-being. In response to this gap of knowledge, the present study draws on the theoretical framework of activity theory and explores the well-being of 13 Iranian EAP teachers. We collected data from a questionnaire, narrative frames, and semi-structured interviews. Data analyses revealed three themes in relation to the teachers’ well-being: (1) content as a site of experiencing positive and negative emotions, (2) content and institutional contextualities as determinants of seeking purpose in EAP instruction, and (3) sociocultural parameters as shaping meaning in EAP instruction. We found that EAP teacher well-being functions as a layered construct that is influenced by various personal, institutional, and sociocultural dynamics, and substantially influences teachers’ professional practices, identities, and emotions. Across these processes, content operates as the antecedent or consequence of the influence in EAP instruction. Based on the findings, we provide implications for teachers and teacher educators in how to employ professional alternatives that could effectively contribute to EAP teachers’ well-being.

Preparing EAP Students for the Transfer Climate: EAP Instructors’ Perceptions of the Role of EAP Courses

Preparing EAP Students for the Transfer Climate: EAP Instructors’ Perceptions of the Role of EAP Courses

Perceived need for a teacher education course on assessment literacy development: insights from EAP instructors

Classroom assessment, as a crucial element of the teaching journey, plays a significant part in enhancing student achievement, student learning, and teacher instruction. As such, teachers should possess a good grasp of assessment literacy. This study aimed to explore the EAP teachers’ perceptions regarding the demand for in-service training in various areas of language assessment, in particular, examining how a language testing and assessment (LTA) teacher education course would impact the EAP instructors’ Language Assessment Literacy (LAL). In this qualitative study, pursuing a descriptive narrative design, 60 EAP instructors were selected through purposive sampling from those who have been working in state universities in Tehran. From these participants, 30 EAP teachers were asked to write narratives regarding their needs for training on LAL, and the other 30 participants were involved in an online semi-structured interview to determine how such a course could promote or inhibit their perceptions and practices of LA and LAL. Using MAXQDA to do content and thematic analysis, the research findings revealed that EAP instructors highly perceived a need for further training especially a practice-based one. In particular, the instructors thought of teacher education courses as contributing to their theoretical and practical knowledge of LAL. Hence, teacher education courses with a specific focus on LAL are highly required, changing EAP teachers’ perspectives on LTA, from being taught solely in theory to being taught practically in real classroom environments.

A Comparison of Explicit and Implicit Approaches to EAP Teaching to Postgraduate Students

The present study aims to explore the role of explicit and implicit approaches in developing pragmatic competence in postgraduate students as part of the Foreign Language course. 32 students were divided into two groups depending on the type of teaching approach for six weeks of instruction. Research proposals written by each group after the interventions were examined with the aim of comparing the employment of pragmatic features such as stance-taking resources and their frequencies. In order to investigate the effects of stance-taking instruction, this study adopted a combination of quantitative and interpretative analysis methods. The results revealed significant differences in the use of stance resources by the postgraduate students exposed to explicit vs implicit instruction. In terms of compliance with the academic writing norms, the explicit instruction was found to be more effective than the implicit one. The analysis found that while the explicit group tended to mitigate their claims and hide authorial presence, the students exposed to the implicit instruction expressed stronger commitments to propositional content and showed writer visibility in the text, which considers to be inappropriate in English-language academic writing. The findings point to important considerations for EAP teaching and future research into academic discourse and contribute to previous studies of the benefits of instruction in the development of pragmatic competence. The results may be employed by curriculum designers to create materials for L2 writers and EAP instructors in their teaching practice.

Teaching Academic English with the Production-Oriented Approach: A Case Study

This paper aims to explore how to apply POA to EAP teaching in China and test its effectiveness through a case study. Three key issues are discussed: the design of the course structure of EAP under the guidance of POA, the implementation of POA in teaching academic English and the effectiveness of POA in increasing of students’ academic English proficiency. It is found that the ideal framework of Academic English consisted of integrated modules, instead of a linear arrangement of the units. Three key factors in the POA teaching process include: motivating tasks in an academic setting with both communicative and linguistic challenges, enabling tasks with corresponding scaffolding and evaluating strategies, and a combination of teacher’s evaluation and peer review with co-produced rubrics for assessment. The results of the study demonstrate the efficacy of the production-oriented approach in enhancing students’ academic English proficiency, specifically in the areas of speaking and writing.

Self-empowerment in the struggling transition from General English to EAP: Action and reflection of a Chinese teacher

Faced with the common challenge of professional development from the periphery of academia, EAP teachers in developing economies such as China also grapple with the particular hurdle of transitioning from teaching General English (GE) courses. While previous studies suggest aspects of how the teachers view the difficulties they encounter, the elicited data they use can hardly show the real actions the teachers take to identify problems, plan and evaluate changes. To remedy this oversight, this study adopts an action research design (Burns, 2010; Johnson, 2012) and explores how one teacher adapted to her new tasks in teaching EAP and coped with the transition through her personal actions.The results show that the teacher was empowered in her struggle with the transition to EAP teaching, and such empowerment enabled her to become an active agent in the changes and implement the accommodating strategies for the EAP curriculum and students. The empowerment was also seen in her efforts not only to accumulate EAP-related experiences and bring forth creative ideas, but also to apply them in her teaching. This action research and its analytical framework help EAP practitioners to reflect on and theorise from what they encounter in everyday classrooms.

Engineering and Management Students’ Views on Online and Face-to-Face EAP Teaching

Engineering and Management Students’ Views on Online and Face-to-Face EAP Teaching

Discoursing disciplinarity: A bibliometric analysis of published research in the past 30 years

Diverging from the long-held homogeneous view of academic discourse, the issue of disciplinarity has come to the forefront in EAP teaching and discourse analysis. Although disciplinary discourse is a well-established and expanding line of inquiry, there has been limited retrospective analysis to unpack its evolutionary nuances. This bibliometric study maps its evolution from 1990 to 2022, tracing its journey from a fringe component within applied linguistics and language pedagogy to a globally recognized field. Using 921 articles retrieved from the Web of Science's core collection, our analysis reveals enduring scholarly interest in disciplinary literacy, writing, and socialization, with a marked shift since 2006 towards exploring the interplay between disciplinary knowledge-making practices and interpersonal features, such as stance, identity, and function. These studies, often using corpus approaches, highlight how these themes both reflect and are shaped by the disciplinary epistemology and ideology inherent in communities of practice. Emerging areas include student writing, spoken English, multimodal resources, and the temporal and interdisciplinary dynamics in various disciplines. The diverse authorship and geographical sources across various fields further underscore the global relevance of these topics. This overview could serve as a valuable resource for researchers, educators, and practitioners navigating this dynamic and significant field.

DECOLONIZING ANGLOPHONE EAP INFLUENCE IN THE EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION CONTEXT

It is widely known that English teaching practices are largely rooted in colonialism and linguistic imperialism – the belief in the superiority of the Western teaching methods and linguistic norms established in such countries as the UK and the US. The current trend to decolonize English teaching has been gaining momentum for over three decades but has not entirely penetrated into the mainstream teaching of English, with English for Academic Purposes not being an exception. Relatively little focus has been placed in the research onto non-English speaking contexts with the purpose of analysing the current state of EAP provision at universities and gauging the influence of the native-speakerist academic English norms on EAP students’ writing. In the case of the EU context, it may be particularly pertinent to investigate the potential influence that Brexit might have had in terms of rejecting the imposition of the Standard British English norms and associated teaching approaches. This paper is meant to be a reflection with an attempt to stimulate the discussion of EAP teaching practices and academic discourses in the EU higher education in the post-Brexit era. It will consider the issues in the EAP provision in the EU with the example of Portuguese HE and will reflect on the native-speakerist tendencies within the academia and ways to tackle the dominance of the Anglophone norms. This paper hopes to contribute to the argument in favor of the decolonization of EAP teaching practices in non-English speaking contexts, as decolonization can help foster a more equitable and inclusive world.

“This study is not without its limitations”: Acknowledging limitations and recommending future research in applied linguistics research articles

Acknowledging limitations and making recommendations for future research are often presented in thesis handbooks and rubrics as obligatory moves that demonstrate an author's critical self-evaluation and authority. Published research articles (RAs), however, reflect nuanced variation that challenges this interpretation. Based on two specialized corpora of 100 quantitative and 100 qualitative RAs from four applied linguistics journals, this mixed methods study combines genre analysis, which highlighted the relative prominence of these moves across methodological approaches and journals, and p-frame analysis, which generated a list of linguistic frames with one or more variable slots (e.g., it is important to * (note/mention/realize)) that emphasize flexibility within formulaic language structures. The results indicate that both moves are quasi-obligatory but vary considerably across methodologies and journals. EAP instructors might use genre analysis to evaluate rhetorical moves and steps together with students and to discuss ways to incorporate variety in academic writing using the list of p-frames identified in this study.

Suitability of TED-Ed animations for academic listening

Amid increasing demand for EAP courses, there is a pressing need to identify suitable materials for EAP instruction. This study examines the suitability of TED-Ed animations for academic listening by exploring the lexical demands, academic vocabulary coverage, lexical density, and speech rates of a corpus of 1,319 such animations covering 12 subject areas. The results show that knowledge of the most frequent 3,000–5,000 word families is necessary to follow TED-Ed animations reasonably well, meaning that they are lexically more demanding than academic lectures. The animations were also found to have a coverage of lower-frequency academic words comparable to that of academic lectures, making the former a potentially important resource in which EAP students can encounter important academic words that are seldom used in general English. Moreover, the speech rate of TED-Ed animations is comparable to that of academic lectures, but they are lexically denser, suggesting that – while they may be useful for familiarizing learners with the delivery pace of academic lectures – additional vocabulary support may be needed. Overall, these results support the use of TED-Ed animations as materials for academic listening, but adequate scaffolding and some adjustments will be needed if they are to be integrated effectively into EAP instruction.

Curbing boredom in online teaching: Effects of an autonomy-oriented intervention with EAP students.

Despite the growing body of research on boredom and its causes in face-to-face classes, little is known about how pedagogical interventions can mitigate this negative emotion. The purpose of this study was to examine boredom experienced by EAP students in online classes and investigate the effects of an autonomy-oriented intervention program on students' boredom. The boredom scale was administered to 84 students before and after the autonomy-oriented intervention. By designing and implementing autonomy-oriented intervention based on the autonomy enhancement model, positive results were obtained with reduced levels of boredom. The results revealed that the intervention was effective and boredom was reduced to a noticeable extent. In addition, the qualitative results contributed to our understanding of the learners' experiences throughout the intervention. We conclude the study with implications for EAP instructors to employ different pedagogical interventions to mitigate negative emotions in online EAP classes.

Differences between novice and experienced academics in their engagement with audience members in conference Q&A sessions

Conference Q&A sessions can be challenging encounters for academics, as unpredictable comments or questions can disarm presenters, particularly inexperienced ones. Novice researchers experience further difficulty in socialising into Q&A discourse due to the limited accessibility of conferences, the scarce attention from researchers on their particular needs, and a shortage of pedagogical materials. This study attempts to bridge the gap by investigating the rhetorical differences in Q&A responses given by novice academics and professors, focusing on lexico-grammatical features. It conducted a data-driven analysis of frequent n-grams and their functions as a precursor to an in-depth manual discourse analysis of the co-articulation of engagement markers. It found that the novice academics preferred contraction markers to express defensive positions while the experienced academics preferred expansion markers to construct a welcoming voice. The findings imply that EAP teaching should emphasise the co-constructive and solidarity-oriented tendencies of Q&A after introducing the generic features of Q&A.

Using the knowledge and expertise of English language specialists to enhance L1 English speaking lecturers’ lectures: A professional development project

This paper reports on a professional development project between a lecturer in a UK university and two EAP practitioners. The aim was to assess the extent to which EAP practitioners’ knowledge of academic English and teaching strategies common to the EAP and ELT sectors could be harnessed to enhance the lectures of an L1 English lecturer for international students. The methodology included recording and reviewing sample lectures, conducting focus groups with students and a reflection discussion with the lecturer. It provided the lecturer with an opportunity to engage with practices drawn from the ELT and EAP sectors in order to develop her lecturing style for these students. The project explored ideas relating to lecturing skills, features of lecture language and discourse, and adopting EAP and ELT teaching techniques in higher education.

Senior Brazilian researchers’ experiences and practices: perceived needs of novice researchers to become part of the community

Academic writing in English challenges graduate students and novice researchers (FLOWERDEW, 2000; NYGAARD, 2015; HYLAND, 2019). Their lack of experience writing academic genres contrasts with the demand to publish research articles in renowned journals in order to complete their degrees and advance in their careers. Research shows that EAP instruction (WINGATE, 2015), understanding publication as a social practice (CURRY & LILLIS, 2019; NYGAARD, 2015), and English language proficiency (FERGUSON, et al., 2011) are areas where novices need support to successfully engage in the activity. In this study, data was collected from 41 Brazilian researchers regarding their experiences and needs.

NEEDS ANALYSIS FOR ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES: IMPORTANCE OF ACADEMIC LANGUAGE SKILLS FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN ETHIOPIA

This study aims to investigate undergraduate students’ needs analysis in English for Academic Purposes. In this study, three hundred-eight first-year students and forty-one EAP and subject area instructors at Wachemo University participated. The research employed a mixed-methods approach that utilized a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview to ascertain the important academic English language skills and sub-skills prioritized by participants. The findings revealed that the participants indicated all the academic language skills as important for students' academic study in the university. The instructors prioritized the academic language skills (academic reading and academic vocabulary) as important, whereas the students ranked the language skills (academic writing and academic speaking) as the first importance. The study emphasized the importance of conducting learners’ needs analysis before developing any English for Academic Purposes course. Findings in the current study could be provided as implications for course designers and recommendations for future studies. Keywords: Needs Analysis; English for Academic Purposes; Academic language skills; Ethiopia;

“We define X as …”: A local grammar of definition in linguistics research articles and its pedagogical value

Local grammars have been shown to be useful for accounting for discourse acts (e.g., exemplification, evaluation) in academic writing. Focusing on the specific discourse act of defining, this study develops a local grammar of definition in Linguistics research articles and further discusses its implications and applications for EAP writing research and pedagogy. Using a corpus compiled from published research articles, the study searched for a set of lexicogrammatical markers to retrieve instances of definition and the subsequent analyses identified 36 local grammar patterns of definition. The pedagogical implications and applications are then discussed in relation to EAP course design and the development of local grammar informed EAP teaching materials. The study concludes that systematically developing local grammars of discourse acts of importance in academic writing is a worthwhile undertaking and the findings of such research can usefully inform EAP writing pedagogy.