English For Academic Purposes Practitioners Research Articles

Collaborative approaches to embedding academic literacy instruction in the curriculum: examples from UK universities

ABSTRACT The development of academic literacy is fundamental to student success in higher education. Universities offer various types of student support, ranging from generic courses to discipline-specific academic literacy instruction. The approach that has been advocated as the most inclusive and systematic is the embedding of academic literacy instruction into subject curricula. Embedding is best facilitated when English for academic purposes (EAP) specialists, with their linguistic and pedagogical expertise, work in collaboration with subject lecturers. Whilst there are several published examples of embedded academic literacy instruction led by EAP practitioners, there is still little evidence of collaborations in which subject lecturers assume some responsibility for students’ academic literacy development. Although there has been a growing trend towards collaborative and embedded activities, they remain largely invisible(Tibbetts and Chapman 2023. A guide to in-sessional English for academic purposes: Paradigms and practices. London: Routledge). This study aimed to offer detailed insights into current initiatives in UK universities and to identify factors that facilitate or constrain collaborations and institution-wide provision of embedded academic literacy support. For this purpose, we conducted open interviews with EAP leaders at fifteen universities. The findings indicate that the type of institution as well as the representation of EAP staff in departmental committees are important factors for the implementation and sustainability of collaborative and embedded academic literacy provision. Based on the findings, we propose some steps that EAP leaders can take to reduce the structural and perceptual barriers preventing the expansion of this provision across institutions.

Exploring the professional role identities of English for academic purposes practitioners: a qualitative study

Abstract While English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has developed theoretically and empirically over the past decades, there are few documented studies on EAP practitioners’ identities. Our study examined 12 Iranian EAP practitioners’ role identities (as one type of identity) in light of the conceptualization of English for specific purposes (ESP) practitioner roles. Adopting a qualitative approach, the study revealed the role of various contextual factors shaping the practitioners’ role identities as being EAP practitioner agents of transformative education, being a course designer and the quest for needs analysis, being a materials provider and managing the oscillations, being a collaborator and the lack of collegiate connection, being a researcher and dispositional variations, and finally being an evaluator and dynamic assessors. The study provides implications regarding how policy and planning shape practitioners’ role identities and suggests future lines of inquiry to build the associated scholarship.

The struggle for pedagogical recognition in higher education: short stories of tension and triumph in the professional identity construction of an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) practitioner in Hong Kong

AbstractA considerable body of work now exists on the role that identity plays in understanding teachers and teaching. Developing and sustaining teacher identities in higher education can, however, be challenging given the subordinate positioning of teaching in some educational contexts. Despite the growth of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programmes in many parts of the world, recent research suggests that EAP practitioners are especially vulnerable to being assigned marginalized identities within the academy. Therefore, this paper reports the results of a study which used a short story approach to investigate the tensions and triumphs one EAP practitioner in Hong Kong experienced in constructing her language teacher identities (LTIs). Findings suggest that her identity tensions and struggles take place across space and time and play out at different scales, including classrooms, educational institutions, and within broader societal discourses. However, the short stories presented in this paper speak not only of tension and struggle, but also of determination and resilience to construct LTIs in the academy. Consequently, the results of this study can help to raise awareness amongst stakeholders, including policy makers, leaders of higher education institutions, and language teaching practitioners, of how they can support and sustain the construction of LTIs within the academy. Implications for professional learning for language teaching practitioners and suggestions for future research are considered.

Beyond the Theory: Symbolic Interactionism and EAP Practitioners' Professional Identity Construction

This article examined the construction of professional identity among TESOL graduate students who are preparing to teach English. The study investigated the meanings that these students associate with professionalism and the challenges they encounter in the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) profession. Even though the EAP field has received significant research attention, few studies have focused on the construction of professional identity among practitioners themselves. This research employs in-depth interviews with 7 alumni of the English Education Department at IAIN Langsa, Kota Langsa to comprehend how EAP practitioners develop their professional identity. The study utilizes key theories from Symbolic Interactionism to create a theoretical framework on EAP identity. The study's results demonstrate that EAP practitioners perceive themselves as effective teachers, but they encounter tensions around positioning, marginalization, and recognition. These tensions often create fragmented identities that may correspond to academic or support service roles. The study emphasizes the need for a shared understanding of EAP practitioner identity to decrease professional disarticulation

Addressing Language and Study Skills Challenges in Online Undergraduate EMI Courses

English-medium instruction (EMI) is taking hold within higher education in non-Anglophone settings, but there is insufficient research into the challenges students encounter when taking EMI courses online. This exploratory quantitative study conducted in Hong Kong examines the language and studying challenges faced by undergraduate students when in-person classes were suspended due to COVID-19. One hundred thirteen first- and second-year students completed a questionnaire, rating their perceived challenges in the areas of writing, speaking, reading, listening, and study skills. The results showed that they faced particular challenges with reading and study skills (especially self-motivation), as well as vocabulary range, which affected more than one skill. Corroborating existing research, students with less secondary school EMI experience reported greater challenges. As providing English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses is a primary way to support the language skills of students in EMI settings, we offer guidance to EAP practitioners who seek to help their students overcome the challenges identified in this article. As online technology continues to deliver content in tertiary education, EAP courses must be closely aligned with the language and study skills needs of students in digital EMI environments.

“Most of us are not feeling well”: exploring Iranian EAP practitioners’ emotions and identities

Although theory and research on English for Academic Purposes (EAP) practitioners have grown recently, there is little documented research on their emotions and identities. This study explored the emotion of 12 Iranian EAP practitioners and their role in their identity construction. Adopting a narrative inquiry methodology, the study examined the practitioners’ emotions across the Zembylas’s (2002) three-dimensional framework of teacher emotions and their role in the practitioners’ identity construction. Data analyses revealed that while the practitioners consider recognition from students as contributive to their positive emotions and identities, sociocultural-ideological discourses and power relations negatively influence their emotions and identities. Such idiosyncrasies were viewed to create huge dissonances between the practitioners’ self-images and their professional sense-making at personal, interpersonal, and macro-structural levels. The study offers implications regarding EAP practitioners’ emotions and identities situated within sociocultural localities of EAP instruction.

Exploring EAP teachers’ expertise: Reflections on practice, pedagogy and professional development

The last 10–15 years has seen significant change in the ways in which English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is labelled and positioned within higher education institutions in the U.K. (Hyland, 2018). EAP teachers are often viewed and treated as a uniform group even though they work under a number of often interchangeable and locally specific titles, deploying their teaching expertise across a range of different settings. Despite such generic perceptions of EAP teachers and teaching, little is known about what EAP teachers see as central to their profession, what constitutes EAP teaching expertise, and how this expertise is gained and enhanced. This paper reports on a mixed-methods design study that sought an emic perspective on what EAP teachers consider as their expertise and what opportunities they have to develop professionally. Drawing on 116 questionnaires and 15 interviews with EAP teachers the data gives voice to EAP practitioners, which has often been missing from research in the field (Ding & Bruce, 2017). Initial findings highlight issues including the types of training and development colleagues feel they need and what they receive, where EAP professional knowledge and expertise is located and the position of EAP knowledge within the broader academy.

Pedagogies in English for Academic Purposes: Teaching and Learning in International Contexts

This is the second multiauthor volume to appear in Bloomsbury’s New Perspectives for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) series. The editors, in their Introduction, argue that this book is ‘particularly timely’ in the light of the ‘relative lack of focus and attention’ that has been given to ‘pedagogies specific to EAP’, and also in relation to ‘the rise in importance and recognition of EAP as a relatively new discipline and the increasing variation in contexts’ (p. 4). However, what this agentless contextualization occludes is the extent to which EAP is a field shaped by economic pressures and the high stress that is often experienced by its actors, both learners and teachers. As higher education has been increasingly commodified, these economic pressures have grown. A university degree from an EMI (English as a medium of instruction) institution, either in an Anglophone country or elsewhere, has become a more valuable asset in the globalized economy, and EAP has become an ever more lucrative business for its providers, be they universities or educational businesses such as INTO and Study Group. These organizations, although key operators in the EAP market, are not represented in this volume. For learners, the EAP encounter is high stakes: it determines their access, via a pre-sessional or foundation course, to their chosen degree course, and their capacity to attain the grades necessary to graduate, most commonly through their written outputs. Teachers of EAP, likewise, experience stress in supporting learners to bridge the often wide gap between their current level of academic skills and language proficiency and the level they need to reach in order to function on their degree programmes. EAP courses are typically short, intensive and, in Anglophone countries, seasonal; the majority of EAP practitioners are on short-term and precarious employment contracts.

Disrupting discourses of deficiency in English for Academic Purposes: dialogic reflection with a critical friend

ABSTRACT The discourse of deficiency in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has been perpetuated through the neoliberalisation of higher education. To explore the possibilities of disrupting this discourse, an EAP instructor, Daron, engaged with his critical friend, Jariya, in dialogic reflection. This was done on Daron’s teaching journal entries through the restorying of his reflections, which were then critically responded to, and finally reconstructed to highlight tensions and hegemonic discourses affecting EAP. This dialogic exercise showed disruption through the reimagination of the EAP marketplace and through the centring of self and anxiety in a neoliberalised parameter. The former demonstrated a critique towards the value of standardised assessments while the latter illustrated the seemingly isolating endeavour when contesting the notion of students’ language deficiency. While tensions were not expected to be resolved, this study showed how EAP practitioners could still enact autonomy within their work parameters.

Illuminating expertise in academic language development: English for Academic Purposes practitioners in the UK

This qualitative case study focuses on English for Academic Purposes (EAP) practitioner accounts of student academic language development at a UK university. EAP practitioners are often uniquely well placed as experts in the complexities of language development and academic language choices which vary according to discipline, epistemological stance, and genre. However, their expertise is often misunderstood or misrepresented. This study contributes to debates on academic language development by using a variation on nominal focus group technique to capture the expertise of EAP practitioners and by applying a lens of language as a social semiotic. Thematic analysis establishes four EAP practitioner discourses: the WHAT and the HOW of language development, and CONTEXTUAL CONSIDERATIONS and DECISION-MAKING in language development. The significance of this study lies in the illumination of experienced EAP practitioners’ expertise through a framework that can inform conversations about language development policies at institutional level.

Accounting for the troubled status of English language teachers in Higher Education

ABSTRACT Recent years have witnessed a heightening of interest in the role of teachers working in EAP (English for Academic Purposes), particularly with regard to defining and debating their professional identity. However, it must be said that most authors have painted a rather dismal picture, when comparing the status and professional standing of English language teachers in Higher Education with that of academics working in other disciplines. Drawing on concepts and models developed by the educational sociologists Basil Bernstein and Pierre Bourdieu, this reflective paper proposes a theoretical framework to account for why these differences in status might be so. The paper concludes that EAP as an academic discipline currently faces some significant threats. However, the paper also argues that if EAP practitioners are to gain the professional recognition they desire, then they themselves must strive to trade more explicitly on the forms of capital valued by the academy.

An Investigation of EAP Teachers’ Views and Experiences of E-Learning Technology

The near universal use of electronic learning (e-learning) in higher education (HE) today requires that students and teachers are equipped with the requisite digital literacy skills. The small-scale pilot study we report on here explored the views and experiences of EAP (English for Academic Purposes) teachers regarding their development of digital literacy skills, their application of e-learning technology in their teaching, and their perceptions of its value as a learning tool—areas on which there has been little research to date. A convergent parallel mixed methods approach was adopted, in which a survey was administered to the research participants and a follow-up focus group conducted. The data were analysed, with findings revealing that the EAP practitioners surveyed utilised a range of online tools such as video, plagiarism software and corpus linguistics tools. A number of benefits and limitations associated with e-learning were cited by participants, including increased student engagement and motivation, the development of learner autonomy, and the cultural capital it represented in respect of students’ future careers. Meanwhile, the limitations identified included a lack of time for teachers to develop digital literacy and insufficient pre- and in-service training opportunities focused on the effective use of digital technologies and managing technical issues. We conclude with a series of recommendations to facilitate EAP teachers’ development and use of e-learning in their practice.

EAP in the expanding circle: Exploring the knowledge base, practices, and challenges of Iranian EAP practitioners

Responding to the limited research on English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teachers, and especially in the context of ‘expanding circle’ countries, this study aimed to explore Iranian EAP teachers’ teaching competencies and professional development (PD) activities as well as their perceptions about the roles, responsibilities, and challenges in teaching EAP. Data were collected from 105 university EAP teachers through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire findings in relation to teacher competencies identified self-reported strengths in the areas of reading and speaking skills development and aspects of pedagogy. Potential areas for further development were related to listening skills, certain areas of writing, providing feedback, and performing needs analyses. Content analysis of the interviews indicated nine major categories of roles and responsibilities involved in the delivery of EAP courses (teaching, PD, collaboration, testing, motivation, materials, needs analysis, research, and text analysis) and seven major challenges (students, materials, EAP teachers, administrative issues, curriculum and syllabus, testing, and content knowledge). Additionally, the teachers provided information about their pathway to EAP teaching and their viewpoints about the role of content knowledge, essential qualifications for EAP teaching, and content of EAP teacher education programs. Finally, implications for practice and suggestions for further research are presented.

A Comparative Research on Perceived EAP Competencies of Turkish Academics

English is presumed as the globally dominant language in the scientific world, and academics are expected to attain written and verbal competencies in academic English to a visible, accessible academic portfolio that represents them as individuals as well as their institutions. The present study was meant to investigate perceived English for Academic Purposes (EAP) competencies of Turkish academics. It exclusively aimed to reveal whether they significantly differ in their perceived EAP competencies regarding such variables as gender, length of academic experience, length of teaching experience and training received abroad. Data were collected via a five-point Likert-type scale developed by the researchers, and quantitatively analysed to explore similarities and differences across different groups of academics in relation to such variables as gender, length of experience in academia, academic titles, training experience received abroad, experience in teaching abroad, number of scientific publications and paper presentations in English (last five years). The findings revealed significant differences in academics’ perceived competencies in EAP related to training experience received abroad and experience in teaching abroad regardless of its length and number of paper publications/ presentations in English over the last five years. Based on the findings, a positive correlation was established between the participants’ EAP competency in speaking and other skills. The study is meant to contribute to the existing literature on EAP via and offer practical implications for EAP practitioners and non-native academics.

A Comparative Research on Perceived EAP Competencies of Turkish Academics

English is presumed as the globally dominant language in the scientific world, and academics are expected to attain written and verbal competencies in academic English to a visible, accessible academic portfolio that represents them as individuals as well as their institutions. The present study was meant to investigate perceived English for Academic Purposes (EAP) competencies of Turkish academics. It exclusively aimed to reveal whether they significantly differ in their perceived EAP competencies regarding such variables as gender, length of academic experience, length of teaching experience and training received abroad. Data were collected via a five-point Likert-type scale developed by the researchers, and quantitatively analysed to explore similarities and differences across different groups of academics in relation to such variables as gender, length of experience in academia, academic titles, training experience received abroad, experience in teaching abroad, number of scientific publications and paper presentations in English (last five years). The findings revealed significant differences in academics’ perceived competencies in EAP related to training experience received abroad and experience in teaching abroad regardless of its length and number of paper publications/ presentations in English over the last five years. Based on the findings, a positive correlation was established between the participants’ EAP competency in speaking and other skills. The study is meant to contribute to the existing literature on EAP via and offer practical implications for EAP practitioners and non-native academics.

Textography as a needs analysis and research tool for English for Academic Purposes and learning development practitioners

The purpose of this paper to introduce textography as a useful method for English for academic purposes (EAP) and learning development (LD) practitioners to fill gaps in subject-specific knowledge and understanding. Textography is a research method that may be new to many practitioners. Textography combines textual analysis, usually associated with EAP, and ethnographic methods, often associated with LD, to investigate contexts, texts and practices. EAP and LD practitioners can use textography with accessible texts as initial needs analysis before reviewing literature or as a more in-depth, long-term research tool.

Intercultural Communicative Competence and English for Academic Purposes: A Synthesis Review of the Scholarly Literature

With increasing numbers of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds enrolling in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programs, understanding intercultural communicative competence can contribute to developing effective EAP pathways to higher education. This review of the literature was carried out to synthesize and uncover emerging themes related to intercultural communicative competence and EAP over a 20-year period from 1996 to 2016. A careful search found 15 scholarly works related to this topic. Papers were coded and analyzed for their key findings to reveal eight major themes: miscommunication, ethnocentrism, acculturation, awareness, ethnorelativism, identity, teaching and learning, and academic success. The scant literature related to the topic points to the need for further research. However, the findings do indicate how EAP practitioners can move away from ethnocentric perceptions and programs of study fixed on acculturation toward ethnorelative understandings and EAP classrooms that support intercultural awareness for both teachers and students.

On the importance of a genre-based approach in the teaching of English for Medical Purposes

AbstractIn experimental disciplinary fields such as medicine, the writing up of a research paper in English may represent a major hurdle, especially for inexperienced writers and users of EAL (English as an Additional Language), mainly due to a lack of familiarity with international discourse conventions. Despite the efforts of many EAP (English for Academic Purposes) researchers and practitioners to provide support for medical PhD students and novice scholars by carrying out studies on research writing, specific courses with an explicit pedagogical approach to the teaching of academic genres are still scarce. Moreover, it often happens that the only possibility of receiving training in writing skills is in the pre-clinical years, when the students are not yet experienced language users and when they lack both the genre conventions and the specialized subject knowledge for such a demanding task. In this article, we offer our view of a genre-driven pedagogy and its practical applications in an EMP (English for Medical Purposes) classroom with the ultimate aim of helping students to publish their medical papers in international (English-language) journals. Our genre-based teaching approach consists in a prior discussion with students about the socio-cultural context in which a particular academic genre occurs. This process of discovery of the social circumstances that surround a specific genre can help them understand more readily its communicative purpose. We believe that a second stage should be the explicit teaching of functions and language structures of archetypal academic texts, initially in a highly controlled fashion, and later on a freer basis, but always using reference papers for illustration and comparison. If learners are more aware of the rhetorical strategies preferred by the members of their disciplinary communities, they may feel more confident as EAL writers about the rhetorical options they can choose depending on the context and type of audience they are addressing.

Teachers’ Written Feedback: Does the Delivery Method Matter?

Responding to student writing, which is a widely researched area, is still one of the most challenging parts of the EAP (English for Academic Purposes) teacher’s job. Little attention has been given to analyzing the role of systematic feedback on students’ improvement of writing at the university. The paper reports on the results of a small-scale action research conducted among first-year undergraduate students, which explored the effect of record sheets, used as a tool to track student progress in writing argumentative essays. Apart from student portfolios and record sheets, the 8-week study used other methods of data collection that included recorded semi-structured interviews and a survey. Findings show that providing consistently structured (praise and criticism) selective (global and local) feedback to students has a positive effect both on the teacher and on student perception of feedback and, generally, their achievements in developing writing skills. The study may motivate EAP practitioners to change their current classroom practices and seek more effective ways of responding to student writing.

Multiword constructions in first year business and engineering university textbooks and EAP textbooks

The body of research into formulaic language, multiword meaning and functional units, has shed light on their role in academic discourse. Some studies have examined which units might be of greatest utility for teaching English for academic purposes (EAP), dealing with corpora of academic language. The reality of most EAP programs is a focus on preparing students for first year university courses, in which textbooks play the key role. The present study uses a corpus analysis method focusing on units called multiword constructions (MWC), and addresses three hitherto unexplored key issues for EAP teachers and materials developers: What MWC exist in first year textbooks used in business and engineering, the most popular EAP student majors at a large Canadian university; whether the first year textbook MWCs are present in the reading texts in popular EAP textbooks; whether the EAP textbooks contain pedagogical treatment of MWC. The results show that the MWC are weakly present in the EAP materials, and that they are not dealt with pedagogically. This knowledge has important implications for EAP practitioners and materials developers.