English for Academic Purposes. Edward de Chazal

EAP teachers at all levels of experience can benefit from the ideas and approaches presented. As with academic textbooks in general, the material in this book is presented to be interpreted, applied, and critiqued. Above all, this book is written to be purposeful and relevant to the needs of EAP teachers working in a wide variety of contexts around the world.

Purpose and organization

      This book aims to give EAP teachers at all levels of experience a comprehensive, up to date, and coherent account of the field of English for academic purposes, offering an accessible description of EAP practice, which is thoroughly grounded in current theories and developments in the field.

      Chapter 1 opens the discussion by setting out ‘The field of EAP’, which is seen as a research-informed practice influenced by many theoretical and practical approaches over a period of more than half a century. Chapter 2, ‘Teaching and learning’, presents a context in which EAP students can be seen as resources of knowledge and experience rather than deficient students in need of remedial training. This chapter discusses teacher competences and current issues in EAP teaching and methodology. In Chapter 3, ‘Texts’, academic texts are presented as sources of knowledge and argument, and are described and analysed to emphasize their meaning and use for EAP teaching and learning. Chapter 4, ‘Language’, casts academic language as agent of meaning: it is through reusable language forms and patterns that original, complex, and abstract meanings can be expressed. This chapter argues for an inclusive approach to language analysis and teaching which recognizes the fundamental inseparability of vocabulary and grammar. Chapter 5, ‘Critical thinking’, sees the critical thinker as reflector and challenger. Critical thinking is essential in academic contexts, and starts with the practice of reflecting on the meanings expressed in texts, and the wider context of the texts themselves.

      Opening a sequence of chapters covering the four skills, Chapter 6, ‘Reading’, explores the role of the academic reader as processor and evaluator. Academic reading is purposeful and productive, and by emphasizing these processing and evaluating roles, EAP teachers can develop their students’ efficiency in reading and processing the information for their own use. This material leads to Chapter 7, ‘Writing’, in which the academic writer is cast as architect of meaning. Based on their reading and thinking, academic writers carry out multiple roles, including assembling and constructing a meaningful new text and managing the writing project. Chapter 8, ‘Listening’, highlights the role of the academic listener as interpreter and recorder through their work in decoding spoken texts and noting down meanings. Chapter 9, ‘Speaking’, consolidates the sequence of chapters on skills by illustrating the academic speaker as reporter and persuader, particularly using material they have read, listened to, and critiqued.

      Following this sequence of skills-focused chapters, Chapter 10, ‘Materials’, looks at principled ways of using, evaluating, and writing materials which reflect the position of EAP teachers in relation to the influences presented in Chapter 1, the issues discussed in Chapter 2, and the series of approaches described in this chapter. EAP materials are seen as objective-driven tasks leading to independence, since student independence is an ultimate aim of EAP. Chapter 11, ‘Assessment’, considers the roles and types of assessments in EAP, showing assessments as tools to determine students’ academic progression through the EAP programme and into their chosen discipline. Finally, Chapter 12, ‘Technologies’, positions technologies as resources for communication and learning. By maximizing the use of the available technologies, EAP teachers and students can enhance the effectiveness of their teaching and learning.

      The final part of the book offers a conclusion to briefly sum up the main arguments in the book as a whole, a glossary of terms used, a bibliography of works cited in the text, and an index.

1 THE FIELD OF EAP

      EAP as a research-informed practice

      English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has evolved from its modest roots in the 1960s to become an emerging global phenomenon. University education is globalizing, English is becoming established as the medium of instruction in a diverse range of contexts, and international students are becoming increasingly mobile. Whilst EAP has developed to meet these students’ needs, it is not only students, but also their teaching staff who are becoming increasingly mobile. A small but growing area of EAP involves teaching these academics, which is discussed briefly in Chapter 2.

      To understand what EAP is and how it reached this stage of development, it is useful to look briefly at its current context, before going back half a century to its beginnings. During this time, EAP has been influenced by linguistics and educational research, and a number of trends, theories, and practices from different parts of the world, which go some way to explaining its current diversity and complexity. This chapter discusses the emergence of EAP, dispels various myths, compares EAP with other English language teaching contexts, and examines the major influences on the field, before returning to its current global context and looking ahead.

      Contextualization

      The field of English language teaching (ELT) is diverse, global, and complex. Within the field many different sectors, approaches, and cultures coexist. These sectors include:

      • general teaching English as a foreign language (known as TEFL, EFL, or ELT, i.e. English language teaching)

      • teaching English as a second language (TESOL, TESL, ESOL, or ESL)

      • more specialized sectors including English for specific purposes (ESP), English for science and technology (EST), English for occupational purposes (EOP), and English for academic purposes (EAP).

      EAP, the focus of this book, has itself given rise to two further sub-sectors: English for general academic purposes (EGAP) and English for specific academic purposes (ESAP). ESAP can cover a variety of types of English for specific academic and professional purposes, such as English for law, architecture, or nursing.

      The fact that this very brief overview contains a dozen or so abbreviations and acronyms illustrates the diversity and complexity of the field, and the potential for confusion. The same sector can have different names. Different sectors can, in effect, have the same name. TESOL, for example, is associated with the USA and is taken to mean the teaching of English to speakers of other languages; in its northern neighbour, Canada, the abbreviation for this activity is more likely to be TESL. In the UK, meanwhile, a distinction is usually made between the teaching of English to speakers of other languages who are learning it anywhere (EFL/ELT, or TESOL in some contexts such as MA programmes), and those, such as migrants, who are learning it in the target language community, for example the UK, in order to integrate into that community (ESOL or ESL). In practice, some of the names and abbreviations are used interchangeably. As the field of ELT develops, some of the names, though not necessarily the sectors, are being used less – for instance EST (English for science and technology), once the ‘senior branch of ESP’ (Swales 1985: x) is now supplanted by business English and EAP – while others represent growing sectors and are becoming more widely used and familiar (EAP).

      In