EAP Teaching Research Articles

Thai University Students’ Attitudes Toward Online Language Learning in a Time of Crisis

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, transitions to online L2 learning have rapidly emerged. However, the impacts of these transitions on students’ attitudes toward online language learning are largely unknown. This study investigated how participation in remote EAP instruction impacted the attitudes of Thai university students ( n = 263) toward online language learning. The study employed a longitudinal survey design and utilized a questionnaire instrument designed for the study containing 33 Likert scale items. The questionnaire was administered at the beginning and end of students’ first fully remote semester. Within- and between-groups comparisons were made of participants’ mean attitudinal ratings on eight multi-item subscales to measure the extent to which, and in what ways, students’ attitudes changed over time. Statistically significant differences were evident in the subscales of open-mindedness, autonomy, effectiveness of instruction, interactivity, and engagement over time; the general trend was toward a more positive perspective on online learning. Results indicated no statistically significant differences on three of the multi-item subscales (motivation, anxiety, and convenience) over time. The analysis showed a significant interaction between proficiency level and time in ratings for the effectiveness of instruction subscale only. Most subscales were weakly correlated with motivation at the beginning of the term; however, all subscales except interactivity showed a higher correlation at the end of the term. The results of this study will be of interest to educators who are seeking to understand learners’ attitudes toward online language instruction during times of crisis and emergency remote teaching (ERT).

Validating a rubric for assessing integrated writing in an EAP context

Although researchers have argued for a mixed-method approach to rubric design and validation, such research is sparse in the area of L2 integrated writing. This article reports on the validation of an analytic rubric for assessing a classroom-based integrated writing test. Argumentative integrated essays (N = 48) written by EAP students at an English-medium Canadian university were rated by instructors (N = 10) with prior EAP teaching experience. Employing a mixed methods design, the quality of the rubric was established through many facet Rasch measurement and perceptions from the instructors elicited during semi-structured interviews. To further explore the rubric’s ability to differentiate among students, essays from three performance levels (low, average, high) were compared in terms of fluency, syntactic and lexical complexity, cohesion, and lexical diversity measures. Results have suggested the rubric can capture variation in student performance. Implications are discussed in terms of validation of assessment rubrics in localized assessment contexts.

Evaluating co-production as a guiding philosophy for EAP teacher training course development

This paper considers the research philosophy of co-production for use in the field of EAP, where it has been little utilised as a guiding principle for research and development projects. The central question to be addressed is the appropriacy of co-production in a specific setting, and the challenges and benefits it brings to the research process. For projects situated in settings that are relatively unfamiliar to professional researchers, co-production provides a promising framework to i) ensure diversity of contextually appropriate perspectives, ii) engender collaboration and egalitarianism, iii) build capacity for action, and iv) engage with and bring together the community to work towards a common goal.We explored the potential of co-production through a project aiming to improve EAP teaching quality in tertiary education in Uzbekistan. The project was designed and implemented by one UK-based and four Uzbekistan-based team members who trained tertiary-level teachers to better instruct EAP, and it successfully reached approximately 300 teaching professionals across Uzbekistan. We detail how co-production brought value to the project but also ways in which it could not be fully implemented. We intend this paper to be an introduction to the application of co-production, through which others in EAP can explore its exciting possibilities.

Functional Patterns of Lexical Bundles and Limitations in Academic Writing by Thai L2 English Learners

<p><em>Lexical bundles, which serve as markers of fluent and appropriate language use, are referred to as "building blocks of discourse" because they occur frequently in written texts and help readers and writers process information more quickly. They also provide important linguistic functions. However, lexical bundles can vary across genres, domains and even sections of the same work, which can be challenging for novice and non-native writers. The purposes of this study are to explore how Thai L2 undergraduate students use lexical bundles in their academic papers written in English and to compare the use of lexical bundles with that in two written corpora: the British Academic Written English (BAWE) and Cambridge Academic English (CAE). A total of 53 research reports, or approximately 615,750 words, from Thai L2 students of English language studies and applied linguistics were systematically compiled and analysed. The most frequent four-word n-grams in the corpora were then identified and their types and functions categorised. Keyword analysis was used to compare the key n-grams identified in each academic corpus. The results show that native and non-native writers use lexical bundles in rather different ways. Some patterns that did not occur in the reference corpus were overused by Thai L2 English students. The data suggest that the inclusion of phraseology in L2 writing instruction has pedagogical implications. This study can be of great pedagogical value, especially for EAP instructors, as it reveals frequent patterns in the form of a pedagogically useful list of word combinations. By extension, the data presented can be used by non-native writers or academics, especially novice Thai writers, to improve their use of phraseological patterns in writing academic research reports or writing for publication.</em></p>

Examining the implementation of academic vocabulary, lexical density, and speech rate features on OpenCourseWare and MOOC lectures

ABSTRACT OpenCourseWare (OCW) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have gained increasing popularity and importance because they greatly expand students’ access to university lectures. Although the main component of OCW and MOOC platforms is lectures, their differences may potentially affect the difficulty of academic listening comprehension. This study thus explores the extent to which the differences between OCW and MOOC lectures may affect L2 academic listening comprehension in terms of three affecting factors: academic vocabulary coverage, lexical density, and speech rate. The result shows that both OCW and MOOC lectures have a high academic vocabulary coverage, with many more higher-level academic words appearing in the current MOOC lectures. Moreover, the lexical density and speech rate of MOOC lectures are significantly higher than those of OCW lectures, suggesting that students may need to process denser information delivered at a faster speech rate when viewing MOOC lectures. It is thus concluded that comprehending MOOC lectures may demand higher-level academic listening skills and a larger academic vocabulary size. The findings can provide implications for EAP instruction in terms of using OCW and MOOC lectures as academic listening materials for students with different academic vocabulary knowledge and listening proficiency levels.

Understanding the Lived Experiences of Tunisian Undergraduate Students in EAP Writing Courses: Students Voicing their Stories

tudies that have investigated students’ perceptions of EGAP and ESAP instructions have generally focused on students’ perceived learning of the features of academic discourse that they can transfer to their subject-specific courses. Examining the processes that students go through when trying to adjust to EAP instruction has received little attention. The present study aimed to explore the challenges that Tunisian students faced when trying to adjust to the requirements of an ESAP course to which they had been introduced for the first time. Understanding these challenges can lead to a better understanding of the processes by which students move from the initial learning context to the transfer contexts (Lobato, 2003). The study was conducted over a period of two years and involved two student cohorts. A student cohort of 21 students participated during the academic year 2014-2015 and another cohort of 36 students participated during the academic year 2015-2016. The research consisted of a diary study, in that data were collected solely from the learner diaries that students were asked to keep as part of the learning activities. Results showed that ESAP instruction presented considerable challenges to students during the first semester of the course. These challenges often caused feelings of anger, disappointment, demotivation, and resistance. Despite these challenges, students’ adjustment to the course was clearly observed in the second semester. The findings also revealed that all participants developed a very positive attitude towards the ESAP model at the end of instruction. The findings suggest that ESAP instruction has a greater potential to promote learning transfer because it provides students with a more authentic learning environment. However, the implementation and success of this model in the various Tunisian academic settings depends, on the one hand, on the EAP teachers’ willingness to change their teaching beliefs and practices and, on the other hand, on their preparations to meet the challenges that such a teaching model can pose to teachers.

The Relationship between Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Intelligences and Classroom Management Strategies among Instructors of English for Medical Sciences

Background: The current study strived to unfold the relationship between interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence types and classroom management strategies among the instructors of teaching English toward the students of medical sciences. The study further tried to see if there was any significant difference between language and content instructors in terms of their classroom management strategies in their classes.Methods: A convenient sample of 80 EAP instructors from state universities of Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, and Mashhad provided responses to the excerpted items related to personal intelligences from McKenzie’s Multiple Intelligences Questionnaire and Behavior and Instructional Management Scale (BIMS). A Pearson product-moment correlation test was run to determine the possible link between the participants’ personal intelligences and their classroom management strategies. Moreover, an independent sample t-test was used to find out the possible difference between language and content instructors in terms of their classroom management strategies.Results: The results revealed a significant relationship between the instructors’ interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences and their classroom management strategies. Furthermore, a significant difference was found between language and content instructors in terms of their classroom management approaches in English for the students of medical science courses.Conclusion: The findings can raise the EAP instructors’ consciousness to enhance their interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence types in order to improve and promote their classroom management strategies. In addition, the results may enhance the policymakers’ perception of the required considerations for in-service teacher training courses of English for medical science instructors.

A review of CLIL outcomes: Calling for fuller use of effect sizes and less reliance uponp

This article reviews empirical quantitative studies concerning the outcomes of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) from the perspective of methodological rigour. This perspective advocates for fuller use of effect sizes (ESs) and less reliance upon the statistical significance (i.e., p). Regarding making fuller use of ESs, it proposes 1) reporting ESs for both statistically significant and non-significant results, 2) specifying which ES benchmark system for interpretation, 3) utilizing a topic-specific ES benchmark system, 4) valuing ES over p, and 5) interpreting ESs adequately. Regarding relying less on p, this article underscores 1) reporting exact p values and 2) using ‘statistically’ to modify ‘(non-)significant(ly)’. This review contributes to a better understanding of the inconsistent findings concerning the outcomes of CLIL. It also provides some suggestions for EAP practitioners (e.g., emphasizing reporting and interpreting ESs in their EAP teaching).

Exploring the Recycling of Objective Move Across RA Sections in Soft Science Disciplines

Although a plethora of research endeavors have investigated the rhetorical structure of the Research Articles (RAs) through the lens of move analysis, Move Recycling (MR) across RA sections has remained unnoticed. The current study sought to bridge this gap by exploring cross-disciplinary variations in the recycling of the Objective move (research questions/hypotheses/purposes) across four conventional sections (Introduction, Method, Result, and Discussion) of RAs. To this end, 600 English RAs from four prestigious journals in six soft science disciplines, published between 2006 and 2018, were selected. The quantitative data analysis results revealed that the Objective move’s recycling was sensitive to the disciplinary variations and RA sections. That is, Economics RAs were the main platforms for recycling the Objective move, and Psychology RAs witnessed the least amount of its recycling. Moreover, Objective move recycling was observed most frequently in the Discussion sections and least frequently in the Method sections of RAs. In the study’s qualitative phase, the RA authors’ rationales for MR, which were received via email, underwent content analysis. Based on the recurrent themes in the RA authors’ responses, four main reasons for MR, including editorial policy, readers’ guidance, discipline conventions, and RA length, were identified. This study’s findings might provide a concise view of MR for researchers, teachers, and students in various disciplines. EAP instructors can raise students’ awareness of MR and encourage them to use it in their RAs as a comprehension facilitator.

Academic vocabulary in an EAP course: Opportunities for incidental learning from printed teaching materials developed in-house

Teaching materials developed in-house are commonly used in EAP courses; however, research on their linguistic content, which can have important pedagogical implications, is scarce. This study examines the occurrence and repetition of general academic vocabulary, operationalised as the Academic Vocabulary List (AVL) (Gardner & Davies, 2014), in the printed teaching materials developed in-house and used in a presessional EAP course at a UK university. The course was divided into three modules and taught over five weeks. At the end of each week, teachers provided us with photocopies of the printed teaching materials they had used. A corpus was compiled from the printed materials of each module. The results show that 846 AVL lemmas (i.e., 28.07% of the lemmas in the AVL) appeared in the materials. They were not equally distributed among the three modules and only 90 AVL lemmas overlapped across modules. The results also show that the average repetition rate of AVL lemmas in the materials was unlikely to lead to the incidental development of recall knowledge from exposure to these materials alone. Recommendations are made for the development of in-house EAP materials and teaching activities that increase students' exposure to academic vocabulary and facilitate its learning.

Applying local grammars in EAP teaching

Local grammars have been reported to have the potential to facilitate English language teaching. This study explores this potential by applying local grammars into the teaching of discourse acts that are frequently performed in academic writing. For demonstration, the study focuses on the teaching of one particular discourse act, i.e., exemplification, and argues that the teaching procedure presented in this paper can also be applied to the teaching of other discourse acts in academic writing. The study shows that local grammars can be integrated into classroom activities, which would in turn help improve EFL learners’ pragmatic performance in academic writing.

Computer-Assisted Language Learning in English for Academic Purposes Courses: Eliciting the Instructors’ Perspectives within the COVID-19 Pandemic Period

Background: The implementation of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) in English for academic purposes courses has gained prominence within the last decades. It received particular attention after the worldwide spread of COVID-19 pandemic. The current study attempted to probe the medical sciences EAP instructors’ attitudes towards implementing CALL in teaching English to the students of medical sciences. The study further tried to inquire into the barriers to the implementation of online EAP classes for the students of medical sciences within the pandemic period. Methods: Taking a mixed-method research design, the questionnaire and interview were used to gather the required data. Eighty EAP instructors completed the questionnaire and 25 instructors answered the interview questions. The participants were teaching English to the medical sciences students in Iranian state universities of medical sciences in Tehran, Yazd, Tabriz, and Mashhad in the academic year 2019-2020. Mean values were used to illustrate the results of the questionnaire items and interview responses were scrutinized to extract the constituent themes. Results: The results revealed that the medical sciences EAP instructors held positive attitudes towards the use of technology in their classes. Indeed, the mean values ranged from 3.16 to 4.79, which indicated the instructors’ positive inclination towards implementing CALL in EAP classes.They also pointed to the existing barriers to the successful implementation of CALL and the challenges they encounter in online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Conclusions: The findings highlighted the significance of revisiting the role of technology in EAP curriculum for medical sciences students. In this regard, the results carry implications for the policymakers, material developers, and instructors in universities of medical sciences.

Constructing subject-specific lists of multiword combinations for EAP: A case study

Abstract This study combines a corpus-based approach and intuition-based judgements to develop a set of multiword combinations for research publications in academic journals. To obtain a representative sample, a corpus of four internal sections of 120 Applied Linguistics research articles indexed in the TCI (Thai Citation Index) database was systematically compiled and investigated. To identify n-grams which occur frequently in the corpus, a corpus-based approach was used. First, a list of 49 content-based strings, likely to be the most useful for pedagogic purposes, was derived. Based on their grammatical and semantic relationships, 3-grams were further investigated. For multiword sequences to occur frequently in the corpus, some pragmatic functionality is required which contributes to pedagogical use. Five EAP instructors were therefore invited to select the useful multiword combinations from the list of identified n-grams. A list of 289 phraseological patterns was finally created successfully. The list can provide additional evidence-based and corpus-informed instructional resources which support English teachers with the planning of lessons as well as materials design and development, particularly for advanced language courses which target scholarly writing.

Lexical bundles in theses, articles and textbooks of applied linguistics: Investigating intradisciplinary uniformity and variation

Lexical bundles have been found to be of considerable significance in academic texts. EAP instructors and students alike are thus encouraged to pay careful attention to these multi-word units in their teaching and learning process, respectively. There are several reports as to the discipline sensitivity of lexical bundles, but their variations within the same discipline are underexplored. This paper investigated the forms and functions of 4-word bundles in a 5.7 million word corpus of textbooks, research articles and theses in the discipline of applied linguistics to shed new light on their intradisciplinary variations across the three genres. Our analyses revealed that while bundles vary substantially across different genres in the same discipline, there are still significant commonalities that disciplinary genres share. Our findings are theoretically insightful as they challenge the generality-specificity dichotomy in EAP by showing that neither side can override the other in its importance. The results also have pedagogical implications for EAP practitioners by drawing their attention to the significance of both discipline and genre in teaching lexical bundles.

Lexical richness in research articles: Corpus-based comparative study among advanced Chinese learners of English, English native beginner students and experts

The current study respectively compares lexical richness, i.e. lexical diversity, density and sophistication in research article manuscripts by Chinese PhD candidates (CPhD), unpublished research papers by native final-year undergraduates and master-level students (Native Beginner Students, NBS) and published research articles (RAs) by native experts (NE). It aims to sketch the profile of CPhD’s use of vocabulary in terms of the three measures of lexical richness in comparison to the NBS and the NE. Our data consisted of 142 RA manuscripts by CPhD, 71 unpublished research papers by NBS, and 128 published RAs by NE in the field of science and engineering. The results showed that CPhD’s lexical richness levels are between NBS and NE. Besides, the three measures of CPhD are not balanced, namely, the lexical diversity is the lowest, similar to that of NBS, the lexical sophistication is in the middle and the lexical density is similar to that of NE. Comparison of the three groups of data indicates that academic expertise may play a more important role than nativeness in the writing of RAs. Integration of EAP instruction with discipline related research activities would be an important way to develop students’ ability of vocabulary use in RA writing.

НОВІ ТЕНДЕНЦІЇ У ВИКЛАДАННІ АНГЛІЙСЬКОЇ МОВИ ДЛЯ АКАДЕМІЧНИХ ЦІЛЕЙ

English language education, especially in light of the status of English as present-day lingua franca, has become a prolific field of research, and no less prolific area of practical application internationally. Through a critical literature review, the current study addresses one of its most prominent subfields – English for Academic Purposes – with special emphasis on academic writing. We briefly touch upon its evolution and identify the terminological ambiguities involved in EAP conceptualization within the broader framework of ESP (English for Specific Purposes). By examining the changes that academic English is undergoing today due to the overwhelming influence of L2 speakers’ varieties (termed “similects” by Anna Mauranen), we elucidate how English as a Lingua Franca movement can benefit and enrich EAP pedagogic practice. We also discuss how EAP fits within the latest CEFR guidelines, paying close attention to mediating skills, critical thinking and integrative thinking skills, which, as we argue, need to be more extensively incorporated into academic writing instruction. We discuss the rationale and the methodological principles of English for Research Publication Purposes as a new offshoot of EAP, which combines genre-based instruction with the exploration of multiple non-linguistic issues, involved in academic publishing, such as interaction with editors and gatekeepers, choosing a suitable journal, navigating the review process. We hope to demonstrate that EAP teaching, and especially academic writing instruction, is in need of major revision to overcome the yawning gap that currently exists between theory and practice.

Analysing the Needs of EFL/ESL Learners in Developing Academic Presentation Competence

The literature on how to develop competence in giving academic presentations (AP) (e.g. Zappa-Hollman, 2007) shows that apart from basic communication skills (i.e. the ability to speak accurately, fluently and appropriately), university students are expected to perform specific roles and develop advanced skills for intellectual exchange and the construction of new knowledge (e.g. skill in expressing their personal voice through evaluation). However, these advanced speaking skills are often neglected by English as a Second Language (ESL)/English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in Asian contexts, such as Hong Kong, as generally observed by English for Academic Purposes’ (EAP) instructors (e.g. Bankowski, 2010). Although there has been some discussion on factors that potentially inhibit the development of ESL/EFL learners (e.g. Confucian education values and an exam-dominated culture), more research is needed on the design of EAP courses to cater for learners’ needs. To fill this gap, this article reports the results of a needs analysis of a group of undergraduates (N=81) in Hong Kong. The study was based on a triangulation of data which included sources, and included questionnaires administered to both students and the course instructors of their major subject disciplines to identify the perceived importance of specific AP skills/features and learning needs, semi-structured follow-up interviews, and a diagnosis of students’ AP competence using a research-based assessment rubric. The findings reveal gaps in students’ understanding of their required roles and performance in both EAP and content courses, gaps in expectations between the students and their content course instructors, and gaps in their AP competence (e.g. ability to use linguistic and discourse features to structure interpretations and facilitate the audience’s understanding of the information they present). An EAP instruction course design framework is then proposed to develop ESL/EFL learner competence in AP, based on the teaching and speaking cycle of Goh and Burns (2012).

Metadiscourse Use in L2 Student Essay Writing: A Longitudinal Cross-Contextual Comparison

Abstract This paper investigates developmental patterns of metadiscourse use in Chinese students’ EAP writing in an English medium university, in comparison with English majors’ EFL writing in mainstream state universities and L1 student writing in UK universities. Taking a longitudinal and cross-contextual perspective, the study explores corpora of L1 and L2 student writing gathered from three sources: EAP essays written by Chinese undergraduate students at an English Medium Instruction (EMI) university; argumentative essays written by English majors in the Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners (WECCL); and academic essays of English L1 students from the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus. Hyland’s (2005a) model of metadiscourse was adopted to identify interactive and interactional devices in each corpus, and results were compared between different levels as well as across the corpora to reveal developmental features. Findings show marked differences in metadiscourse use between Chinese EMI students’ EAP essays and English major students’ EFL essays in mainstream state universities, whereas a similar pattern of use occurred in EAP essays and English L1 student academic essays. Significant changes were also found between different year levels in two L2 essay corpora. The findings suggest that metadiscourse use in L2 writing had developmental trajectories distinctive to different institutional contexts, with EAP instruction in the EMI institution having mixed effects on Chinese students’ awareness and use of metadiscourse in essay writing.

Local grammars and discourse acts in academic writing: A case study of exemplification in Linguistics research articles

Local grammar is an approach to linguistic analysis and explanation which seeks to account for one function or discourse act only. This study employs the local grammar approach to explore discourse acts that are frequently performed in academic writing and further discusses the pedagogical implications and applications of local grammars in EAP teaching, aiming to present an alternative approach to exploring and teaching academic writing. The study first demonstrates the applicability of local grammars in accounting for discourse acts in academic writing, by focusing on a case study of exemplification in Linguistics research articles. It then argues that the practice of local grammar analysis helps to further raise academic writers’ awareness of the patterned nature of language in use, not only in terms of lexical-grammatical patternings, but also discourse-semantic patternings. Applications of local grammar research on discourse acts in EAP teaching are further discussed.

Investigating the effects of reducing linguistic complexity on EAL student comprehension in first-year undergraduate assessments

Academic writing across disciplines is often linguistically complex, characterized by abstract ideas densely packed into nominal groups (Biber & Gray, 2010; Halliday & Martin, 1993; McCabe & Gallagher, 2008), along with infrequent lexis and content requiring specific cultural knowledge. This linguistic complexity presents a significant comprehension challenge, contributing to an increase in the performance gap between English as an additional language (EAL) students and their non-EAL peers (Abedi & Gándara, 2006). This study presents the outcome of a collaborative project between Psychology, Sociology, and EAP instructors teaching within a pathway program at a Canadian university combining first-year university courses with language-linked EAP courses. One key outcome of this collaboration has been greater awareness of the comprehension challenges that assessments pose for students, particularly in the case of multiple choice question (MCQ) exams. To investigate the effects of linguistic complexity, the research team analyzed whether unpacking MCQs by reducing the linguistic complexity in test questions improves comprehension for EAL students. Our findings indicate that EAL students are more likely to score higher on unpacked assessment questions, highlighting the importance of reducing the complexity of language in assessments to provide linguistic space for novice students to demonstrate their knowledge of disciplinary content.