English For General Academic Purposes Research Articles

The Theoretical Merits and Practical Challenges of Adopting an ESAP Methodology in Teaching ESP, with an Emphasis on the Pragmatic Viability of an EGAP Approach

This article vividly exhibits and distinguishes the distinctions between teaching ESAP and EGAP. It defines the two approaches and shows which teaching approach is the realistic option according to the author's point of view. The author hence proceeds with elucidations on why EGAP is the realistic option and elaborates on the five roles of an ESP teacher. In addition, the author mentions a study that was conducted in Vietnam. The study was based on a systematic literature review of current research on English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) and English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) teaching approaches, and 15 relevant studies were synthesized. Some of this research showed positive results, while others showed negative results of the approaches. The final results of this study show that ESAP learning was hard in practice. It shows how EGAP is considered a course to equip and prepare students for ESAP courses. It prompts EGAP through group work and suggests it will make students feel less intimidated. The weaker students will learn from the stronger students in an EGAP group working class. It shows one of the relevant study's responses and teachers who think EGAP is significant in teaching before students can enter ESAP courses. Scaffolding is considered a significant role teachers need to ensure learners have reached their needs in both approaches. In the latter part of the article, the author mentions her experience teaching ESAP at Kuwait University, specifically at the College of Engineering. The authors show what difficulties they have gone through and how they managed to teach at this college.

Chinese university EFL learners’ English for General Academic Purposes: relationships between target needs and self-efficacy

To prepare university students for better participation in global academic activities and address learners’ needs for greater proficiency in academic English, English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) courses are provided in many Chinese universities. This study investigates the characteristics of and relationships between university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ target needs and self-efficacy in China’s EGAP context. With a sample of 1340 EFL learners from four Chinese universities, the results indicated high levels of target needs but low levels of self-efficacy of EGAP among the Chinese university EFL learners. Students at a research-oriented university demonstrated higher levels of target needs and self-efficacy than their counterparts at teaching-oriented universities. Medical students demonstrated higher levels of lacks and wants than students in other majors. Structural equation modelling analysis showed positive relationships between Chinese learners’ necessities and self-efficacy in EGAP. Learners’ lacks had significantly negative relationships with self-efficacy, while their wants had inconsistent relationships with the five dimensions of self-efficacy. The findings deepen our understanding of learners’ target needs and have implications for enhancing learners’ self-efficacy in the EGAP context.

What does it mean to construct an argument in academic writing? A synthesis of English for general academic purposes and English for specific academic purposes perspectives

Argumentation is a crucial skill in higher education, and argumentative essays are common genres that students have to write. However, studies have shown that many L2 learners have difficulty in developing an argument in their essays (Wingate, 2012) and that teachers face challenges in gaining an understanding of argumentation and how to scaffold L2 learners (Kibler, 2017). As a first step toward establishing a comprehensive argumentative writing framework for learners and teachers, this article presents a synthesis of relevant empirical studies that illuminate the argumentative features of academic discourse. Focusing on two research perspectives—argumentative writing for general academic purposes and argumentative writing for specific academic purposes—, this review aims to establish a nexus between generic knowledge about argumentation and discipline-specific contexts for argumentation. This review forms the theoretical foundations for the improvement of English for academic purposes practice, providing choices that teachers may have been previously unaware of, thus empowering them to move beyond the constraints of a structure-oriented understanding of argumentative writing and helping learners navigate the demands of higher education.

“It's complicated and nuanced”: Teaching genre awareness in English for general academic purposes

This article shares a year-long qualitative study of six writing instructors' experiences with genre-based pedagogy (GBP). Through a collaborative research approach, the study examines these teachers' perspectives on their challenges and successes with GBP in an English for general academic purposes writing classroom. Findings highlight challenges related to course aims, content, and structure, as well as successes related to the ability to use their content knowledge of genre to troubleshoot and further develop their use of GBP in the classroom. The findings suggest that teacher pedagogical content knowledge of genre develops in interaction with teachers’ practice and should be supported by robust and on-going teacher training and support. The paper concludes by offering examples of how teacher support might address the challenges unique to genre-based pedagogy.

The Effectiveness of ESAP and EGAP in ESP Teaching

The study compares a distinct between English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) to explore the real needs of students and help students and teachers choose proper learning and teaching strategies to improve the effectiveness of English learning and teaching. Literature review is used as a research method and offers an overview of the definitions, pros and cons, case study of EGAP and ESAP. It is concluded that both EGAP and ESAP contribute to the academic English learning, while EGAP focus on academic language study for specific English proficiency tests like IELTS/TOFEL and ESAP focus on academic language study for postgraduate and professional work.

English for General Academic Purposes or English for Specific Purposes? Language Learning Needs of Medical Students at a Chinese University

The debate over the appropriacy of EGAP and ESP has been an ongoing concern in many higher education contexts. In this paper we discuss how teachers’ and students’ perceptions of English curriculum needs are reflected in the conflict between short-term goals, such as passing exams, and long-term goals, such as career development. Students, doctors and teachers at a medical university in the central part of China were asked about their needs through questionnaires and structured interviews. The findings suggest that whilst many felt the need for medical English to be taught in the early years, particularly through medical texts, there was also push back due to the need for general English to pass English exams, such as CET4/6. We argue that through the incorporation of medical texts, students can start to develop their medical English from the first year of university. This not only ensures the motivation for students to study medical English for professional purposes, but also fulfills the perceived need to prepare for the exam.

International teleconferences in EGAP courses: preparing students for prospective professional situations

Abstract This paper describes a joint programme developed in 2018 by the University of Parma Language Centre (Italy) and the Humanities and Arts Department of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The aim of the project was to involve students of English for General Academic Purposes in delivering presentations to an unfamiliar foreign audience on a topic relevant to their academic interests. The students were required to prepare for the presentation by exploring and personalising the chosen topic so as to be able to explain it to a group which they had had no previous contact with or information about. Through the active involvement of the students in a realistic implementation of their prospective professional use of English, language learning became a holistic experience where a traditional approach to language learning focusing mainly on vocabulary and macro-skills was integrated with a pragmatic approach which addressed the so-called ‘21st-century skills’ (specifically critical thinking, communication, collaboration and digital literacy). The simulation of situations that they are likely to encounter in their professional lives helped students build their confidence, with the whole learning experience carrying both emotional and social implications. This paper offers an insight into the challenges and issues which arose, and ideas for improving the learning experience. We describe the preparation carried out by the teachers at both universities, and the guided and autonomous work carried out by students in the different stages. A post-conference survey triggered the students’ self-reflection in relation to learning and personal development. The survey was also valuable for the teachers regarding reassessment of teaching strategies and preparation for future joint projects.

대학 학술 목적 중심 교양 영어 프로그램 모형 개발 연구: 대학 교양 영어를 중심으로

The study aims to design an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program model for college English classes (CECs) in Korea. To achieve this aim, two questions were raised: 1) how do foreign universities apply EAP into their CECs? and 2) what are differences in Y university students' satisfaction with the current CECs system and their future needs? In order to answer the first research question, several cases of English programs in foreign universities were investigated through Internet queries. For the second question, we collected surveys from a total of 673 undergraduates. The results indicated that foreign universities primarily target English for general academic purposes, prefer task-based instruction in their EAP classes, and emphasize academic writing and reading skills. In addition, the survey results displayed that the satisfaction with current CECs and future needs are different among students in different disciplines, most students hope to take EAP classes prior to their 4th semester, and students prefer a class size less than 20 students, and an after-class workload less than 4 hours a week. Those results were integrated to ultimately establish a dual model for EAP. More detailed accounts of the model are discussed in the paper.

Systemic Functional Linguistics for the EGAP module: Revisiting the common core

A Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)-informed English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) module is discussed in this paper. This approach offers a way to design a common core curriculum for EGAP which can go towards addressing disciplinary specificity. The theory is recontextualized in the EAP module through a pedagogical tool called the instantiation table which exploits the key SFL notions of stratification, metafunction and instantiation to teach a body of transferrable knowledge about language and disciplinary variation. Beyond providing general academic literacy support, the approach also aims to equip learners with an analytical lens to independently explore their future contexts of communication. The paper first explains the theoretical grounding of the table of instantiation, and how it is implemented in classroom practice. It then reports on a survey of the tutors and students’ perceptions of the intervention. Successes and challenges faced by tutors are analysed. The paper closes with a discussion of the challenges of recontextualization of SFL theory in an EGAP curriculum engaging the Legitimation Code Theory dimension of Semantics.

Evaluating a blended course for Japanese learners of English: why Quality Matters

With the increase in the number of blended courses in higher education over the past few years, it is now increasingly important to assure the quality of online education by evaluating blended (or hybrid) courses from various aspects such as consistency of learning objectives with assessment, learning materials and technology used, and pedagogical and technical support among others. This article describes the evaluation phase of a blended course of English for general academic purposes (EGAP) targeting second-year undergraduate Japanese students mostly from the Faculties of Law, Letters, Economics, and Human Sciences at Osaka University. In this study, the researchers adopted an inclusive approach to blended course evaluation. In order to ensure the course quality from the outset, the Fifth Edition of Quality Matters Higher Education Course Design Rubric was utilized as the major reference. As part of the evaluation process, students’ perception on the usefulness of the course was also measured quantitatively and qualitatively through an attitudinal survey instrument and open ended reflection questions. Eventually, to add an outsider positionality, the blended course was peer-reviewed by a certified reviewer from Quality Matters (QM) after having been self-reviewed by the researchers. The findings of the evaluation survey demonstrated students’ overall satisfaction with the course, and their responses to the open-ended questions provided further insight into the educational and technical difficulties they encountered. The QM peer review also yielded a score of 70 out of 99, resulting in failure to meet the essential standards. However, comments from the peer reviewer guided the refinements and improvement of the course design, and the course currently meets all the requirements of the Higher Education Course Design Rubric (Fifth Edition) upon amendment. This study discusses the implications for design, development, and evaluation of English-as-a-foreign-language blended courses and provides practical tips for online/blended course designers. Further refinements to the existing course can be made in the future by implementing it several times with various groups of students.

Developing academic literacy through a decentralised model of English language provision

ABSTRACTStudents entering English-medium universities frequently struggle to cope with the language demands of their degree programmes, despite having met the English language entry conditions stipulated by their receiving institutions. This can have significant repercussions for the teaching-learning process, for the student experience and for universities’ reputations. Most universities, therefore, have in place some form of in-sessional English language support to develop students’ language proficiency. Such provision tends to be centralised and to offer English for general academic purposes rather than language development that responds in a more nuanced way to the particular literacy needs of students’ disciplines. In this article we report on an alternative, decentralised model of language support, implemented in a School of Nursing and Midwifery, and which seeks to develop students’ competency in the language skills required for their Nursing studies and professional practice. Results to date have been encouraging and provide further evidence that such tailored provision offers a potentially fruitful language development strategy.

The Need for Establishing an English Self-Access Center at Osaka University: Practical Suggestions and Overall Guidelines

As part of a PhD project, an in-depth needs analysis was carried out to assess the English language needs and difficulties of undergraduate Japanese EFL learners at Osaka University. The results were primarily intended to guide the design and development of an online English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) course. The findings further revealed a pressing need for launching and maintaining self-access language learning facilities which could provide learners with independent and semi-guided learning opportunities addressing their needs and interests. In this paper, the importance of establishing a self-access language learning center at Osaka University will be proposed with the goal of fostering learner autonomy. In fulfilling this objective, practical suggestions and overall guidelines will be outlined based on a number of language learning center observations in Japan. It is hoped that this writing will serve as a stimulus to strengthen the status of English language teaching at Osaka University.

Are Japanese digital natives ready for learning english online? a preliminary case study at Osaka University

Assessing learner readiness for online learning is the starting point for online course design. This study thus aimed to evaluate Japanese learners’ perceived e-readiness for learning English online prior to designing and developing an online EGAP (English for General Academic Purposes) course at Osaka University. A sample of 299 undergraduate Japanese students completed a translated and adapted version of the Technology Survey developed by Winke and Goertler (CALICO Journal 25(3): 482–509, 2008). The questionnaire included items about respondents’ ownership of and access to technology tools, their ability in performing user tasks from basic to advanced, their personal educational use of Web 2.0 tools, and their willingness to take online English courses. The informants were found to have personal ownership and/or adequate access to technological devices and the Internet at home or at the university. While their keyboarding skills have been reported as relatively low, the self-assessment data indicates that the participants know about general Web 2.0 tools and utilize them in daily life but not within educational settings. The students were also in general unwilling to take online courses, either fully online or blended. This finding further highlights the necessity of digital literacy training before implementing the prospective online course with a focus on EGAP.

Chinese University EFL Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions towards EGAP Reading and Writing Courses

<p>The present study examined how undergraduate students from a prestigious Chinese university perceived the teaching and learning of English for general academic purposes (EGAP) reading and writing courses. Analyses of 951 questionnaires revealed that most participants generally (strongly) believed that learning general academic English was closely related to their major study, reported being motivated to learn general academic English, and expected to improve their academic English reading, writing, listening and speaking skills from EGAP courses. The study also showed that they had consensus about the requirements and teaching and learning foci of general academic English in spite of their concerns about academic English, and that students of more demanding and more academic EGAP courses tended to have a better understanding of general academic English. Based on the findings, some suggestions are discussed.</p>

English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) Writing

This introductory review article for this special issue sets out a range of issues in play as far as English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing is concerned, but with a special emphasis on English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) (as opposed to English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP)). Following the introduction, the article begins by outlining the different types of EAP and presenting the pros and cons of ESAP and EGAP for writing. It then goes on to review work in a range of areas of relevance to ESAP writing. These areas are register and discourse analysis; genre analysis; corpus analysis; ethnography; contrastive rhetoric; classroom methodology; critical approaches; and assessment. The article concludes by arguing that whichever model of writing is chosen (EGAP or ESAP), or if a hybrid model is the choice, if at all possible, students need to be exposed to the understandings, language and communicative activities of their target disciplines, with students themselves also contributing to this enterprise.

Teacher’s and Students’ Beliefs on English for General Academic Purposes: The Case of Iranian University Students

<p>This study was framed in the sociocultural theory to look into the evolution of L2 learners’ beliefs about the general English course during a term. One hundred ninety-eight male and female university students and their general English course teacher were randomly selected as the participants of the study. Data were gathered through the administration of Horwitz’s (1988) BALLI questionnaire. Among the participants, 38 students were invited to take part in semi-structured interview sessions and fill in an open-ended questionnaire at the beginning and end of the term. Descriptive statics were applied to precisely analyze the quantitative data based on the questionnaire. In order to qualitatively analyze the data, the grounded theory methodology was utilized to code the data and find the main categories in line with the research questions of the study. Findings concluded that all the learners changed their simplistic beliefs about the general English course highlighting the attention to grammar and vocabulary. In fact, the teacher believed in teaching strategies to pave the way for the learners to comprehend the text better and apply the strategies while reading. The teacher’s meditational activity assisted the learners to evolve their simplistic beliefs and be able to benefit from reading strategies for better comprehension. Awareness-raising activities should be done in terms of teachers’ and students’ beliefs about EGAP (English for general academic purposes) to equip L2 learners with better educational environments resulting in their enjoyment of the learning process.</p>

Research on EAP teaching model in medical university based on the concept of CBI (Content-based instruction)

CBI (Content-based instruction) , integrating the content and language, can be used to guide teaching EAP (English for academic purposes). Main Teaching Models based on CBI (Content-based instruction) include immersion model, theme-based instruction and content for language practice. EGAP (English for general academic purposes) curriculum can be set up in medical universities in the second and third academic years, such as medical integrated course, medical listening & speaking course, medical writing course. ESAP (English for specific academic purposes) curriculum can be set up in the fourth and fifth academic years, such as clinical English, nursing English and stomato-logical English. Theme-based instruction can be applied in medical integrated course and listening & speaking course, including creating situation to lead in the theme, assigning tasks to experience the theme, setting topics to deepen the theme and giving assignment to explore the theme. Content for language practice model can be applied into medical writing course, such as teacher's demonstrating and explaining, students' absorbing and imitating and mutual evaluating. Immersion model can be used in ESAP (English for specific academic purposes), such as choosing typical cases to teach in English, teaching ward round in English, doctor-patient communication in English. Preliminary practice was carried out for one year, experimental class with theme-based instruction and content for language practice model, and control class with traditional teacher-centered teaching model. At the end of the practice, they were given the same test and questionnaire, it was found that CBI teaching models facilitated to improve the students' English level and also enhanced their study motive and independent study ability. Key words: Content-based instruction teaching concept; English for academic purposes; Curriculum design; Teaching model

Responding to English Language Needs of Undergraduates: Challenges and Constraints

This article presents the findings of a study which investigated the needs and expectations of a group of students registered for an undergraduate degree programme offered in the medium of English which is the students’ second language (L2), at the Open University of Sri Lanka. The study was conducted at the beginning of the English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) Course which is offered to these undergraduates to enhance their core academic English language skills. The views of the teachers of main subject disciplines about the importance of English for successful functioning in their respective academic disciplines were also investigated. The challenges, constraints and possibilities in meeting the needs and expectations of these stakeholders are also discussed. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/ouslj.v7i0.7305 OUSL Journal Vol.7 2014: 1-24

A Probe into Adaptive Transfer across Writing Contexts: A Case of an EGAP Class

In an effort to expand the disciplinary discussions on transfer in L2 writing and because most studies have focused on transfer as reuse and not as an adequate adaptation of writing knowledge in new contexts, the present study as the first of its kind aimed to explore the issue of adaptive transfer in an English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) writing course. The study thus focused on types of adaptive transfer across disciplines and the processes involved in achieving them. The data were collected through interviews conducted on writing samples both from the participants' EGAP class and their other courses in the university (non EGAP). The results showed five categories of adaptive transfer including 'organizing, grammar refining, rephrasing, metaphorizing, and resource using'. Also, the analysis of the data demonstrated a variety of processes involved in the accomplishment of adaptive transfer, which all pointed to the multidimensionality of evaluation and re-evaluation that the writers conducted to achieve their composing potential. Additionally, the results revealed slight disciplinary inconsistency for the categories of adaptive transfer detected, with the English Language enjoying the highest and Electrical Engineering the lowest frequency of such transfer. The results imply that EGAP classes can create a directive condition for the enhancement of learning transfer.

Learning Transfer in English for General Academic Purposes Writing

This article was launched to investigate if learning from an English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) writing course transfers to other writing contexts. The study focused on the issue of transfer across disciplines, tasks, and two languages (English and Persian). The data were collected through interviews and writing samples from the participants’ own EGAP class and their other courses in the university (non-EGAP). The interviews were transcribed and coded for the self-reports of learning transfer, and the writing samples were analyzed for the 10 learning outcomes already instructed in the class. The results demonstrated that transfer of learning was variably achieved within interview-based transcriptions and writing samples, though to a varying degree. Showing high degree of conformity and a roughly similar general regularity, both series of data indicate that learning transfer does occur, though inconsistently, across disciplines, tasks, and the two languages.