the-eap-curriculum-issues-methods-and-challenges

11 The EAP curriculum: Issues,
methods, and challenges

John Flowerdew and Matthew Peacock
English language teaching can be classi®ed into two main branches,

English for General Purposes (EGP) and English for Speci®c Purposes
(ESP) (Strevens, 1988a; Hutchinson and Waters, 1987). Within
English for Speci®c Purposes there are again two principal branches,
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational
Purposes (EOP). However, within ESP, EAP tends to dominate,
certainly in terms of research and research-based application.
The now widely accepted recognition of EAP as a separate and
distinct discipline from EGP, on the one hand, and EOP, on the other
(albeit with much overlapping), has made urgent the continuing
search for the best approach to the design, implementation and
evaluation of the EAP course. The teaching and learning of EAP
presents its own unique challenges, problems, opportunities, failings
and successes, and course and curriculum designers have to accept
and meet those challenges and opportunities. One vital step in this
process is producing a comprehensive description of the unique needs
and wishes of the EAP student; another is shaping a detailed descrip-
tion of the nature of the EAP teaching and learning process; a third
critical step in designing the EAP curriculum is accepting that the
methodologies and approaches valid in any other area of ESL are not
necessarily the most appropriate for EAP. The needs and wishes of
EAP learners are distinct and clearly identi®able from those of EGP
learners, as is the EAP learning context, and the EAP course designer
must investigate and try to ful®l those needs and wishes within the
context of the relevant EAP course.
This introductory chapter discusses key aspects of the EAP curri-
culum: needs analysis for EAP, planning the EAP course, syllabus
design, methodology, teaching the different skills, assessment and
programme evaluation. The key questions concerning each of these
issues are introduced in this chapter, paving the way for the more in-
depth research studies that will make up the main part of the rest of
the book.
177
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. The University of British Columbia Library, on 23 Apr 2018 at 08:15:02, subject to the
Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139524766.015
178 The English for academic purposes curriculum
Needs analysis
There is a general consensus that needs analysis, the collection and
application of information on learners' needs, is a de®ning feature
of ESP and, within ESP, of EAP (e.g. T. Johns and Dudley-Evans,
1991; Robinson, 1991; Strevens, 1988a; Jordan, 1997). Needs
analysis is the necessary point of departure for designing a syllabus,
tasks and materials. With its concern to ®ne tune the curriculum to
the speci®c needs of the learner, needs analysis was a precursor to
subsequent interest in `learner centredness' (Nunan, 1988a; Tudor,
1996). Early examples of needs analysis were simple affairs that
sought to get a rough idea of the purposes for which learners would
need English after their course. A more systematic and very in¯uen-
tial model was that of Munby (1978), who provided a very detailed
multi-dimensional model for specifying the uses of language that
learners were likely to encounter in speci®c purpose situations.
Munby was criticised for only considering the target needs (re-
ferred to as Target Situation Analysis) of learners and neglecting
other requirements. Needs analysis should be more than just a
speci®cation of learners' target uses of the language, subsequent
curriculum specialists argued. It should also consider learners' lacks ±
that is, what they actually require, taking into account what they
already know ± and their wants ± what they themselves wish to learn
(Hutchison and Waters, 1987); target situation analysis may discover
that learners need to be able to read academic textbooks, but
learners, on the other hand, may feel that grammatical accuracy is
what they need, or want to improve their social English.
An approach to EAP needs analysis can be to ask ourselves why
the learners are doing an English course, in what situations they will
need or already need English, and what they must do in those
situations. Information can be gathered from people with responsi-
bility for the course, learners, and others in the learners' academic
department who are now using English. The information to be
collected can also include the learners' primary motivation in
learning English, their learning background, ESL pro®ciency (four
skills) and an idea of how much they now use English outside the
classroom ± that is, their opportunities for reading, writing, listening
and speaking English.
A further dimension of needs analysis is concerned with ®nding
out about learners' language learning strategies (Oxford, 1990),
de®ned by Oxford as conscious or unconscious methods of helping
or accelerating learning. Strategy analysis is particularly important in
EAP contexts where learners and teachers come from different
The EAP curriculum: Issues, methods, and challenges 179
cultural backgrounds, and where approaches to language learning

may vary (Tudor, 1996).
Given the technical nature of the areas of language use with which
EAP is concerned, in addition to the various dimensions to needs
analysis just mentioned, there is an important role to be played by
the specialist informant, a subject-matter expert who can interpret
the conceptual content of the target situation on behalf of the needs
analyst.
A range of methods is commonly used for conducting needs
analysis. These include questionnaires, interviews, participant and
non-participant observation, authentic language data (texts and
recordings), case studies of learners, self-assessment, pre- and post-
course testing, and learner diaries.
Given its increasing complexity, practitioners have come to realise
that needs analysis cannot be just a one-off exercise, but that it needs
to be on-going and continually re®ned, as teaching and learning
develop (Tudor, 1996). Increasingly, detailed ethnographic studies are
being used as on-going needs analysis. As with ethnography in
general, the need for triangulation of perspectives is increasingly
coming to be accepted.
Whatever approach to de®ning learner needs is taken by course
planners, students need to be part of the planning process and
teachers should ensure that they have an overview of the goals of the
course, and of each lesson. This encourages student participation in
the learning process and reduces potential frustration and disappoint-
ment. A link between individual activities and these wider goals is
also needed, as is a variety of tasks and materials that will cater to
the differences in learning styles, beliefs about language learning and
modes of learning found particularly in pre-sessional courses. The
EAP classroom is also very likely to contain learners of different
levels of pro®ciency, and needs analysis needs to re¯ect this likely
variation in target audience.
The EAP syllabus

Following the description of learner needs that is the outcome of
conducting needs analyses, the syllabus designer must develop a
detailed description of goals for the course as well as an evaluation of
the potential dif®culties learners will have in meeting those goals. An
EAP syllabus, like any other syllabus, consists of a description of
what will be included in the course, or course objectives.
Approaches to EAP syllabus design have been very much in¯u-
enced by research in applied linguistics. Hall and Crabbe (1994) list a
range of approaches to EAP syllabus design. The earliest they

mention is the still in¯uential Lexicogrammar-based approach,
mostly focused on the teaching of structure and vocabulary and
in¯uenced by register analysis of the sixties and seventies. The
second is the Function-notional-based approach developed in the
1970s, partly as a reaction against earlier form-focused approaches.
Next came the Discourse-based approaches of the late 1970s, with
an emphasis on cohesion and coherence at the level of the text. A
further development was Hutchison and Waters's (1987) Learning-
centred approach, which concentrated not on the language items
and skills students needed, but rather on what they had to do in
class to learn these processes; there is an emphasis on meaningful
and appropriate content and on communication within the class-
room. Finally, the Genre-based approach uses materials and tasks
based on authentic linguistic data in order to promote student
awareness of the conventions and procedures of the genre in
question.
Another important approach, not mentioned by Hall and Crabbe
(1994) is the skills-based approach, where the focus is on particular
skills. This has been very important, given the rather precise needs of
some EAP courses (for example, many learners in South America
have traditionally only required a reading knowledge of English).
Another very in¯uential approach to EAP syllabus design, espe-
cially in North America, but not mentioned by Hall and Crabbe
(1994) is the content-based syllabus. Flowerdew (1993a: 123) cites
Spanos (1987) in listing the precepts upon which content-based
approaches are based:
. Language teaching should be related to the eventual uses to which
the learner will put the language
. The use of informational content tends to increase the motivation
of the language learner
. Effective teaching requires attention to prior knowledge, existing
knowledge, the total academic environment and the linguistic
pro®ciency of the learner
. Language teaching should focus on contextualised language use
rather than on sentence level usage
. Language learning is promoted by a focus on signi®cant and
relevant content from which learners can derive the cognitive
structures that facilitate the acquisition of vocabulary and syntax
as well as written and oral production
There are a number of different types of content based instruction,
including theme-based, sheltered and adjunct (Brinton et al., 1989),
and various hybrids of these basic types. Theme-based instruction is

organised as a set of topics or a single topic selected by the teacher.
Theme-based instruction focuses on developing overall academic
skills and is not targeted at a particular discipline. Sheltered instruc-
tion consists of courses run by subject specialists for second
language students in mainstream American colleges and universities.
Second language learners can bene®t from such instruction, it is
claimed, because content teachers will naturally make adjustments
and simpli®cations in order to communicate more effectively with
their second language audiences. With adjunct language instruction,
students are enrolled in both a content and a language course
dealing with the same content. The second language students are
integrated with mainstream students in the content class, but are
segregated and receive extra help in the linked language support
course.
The role of the teacher

Carver (1983) and Strevens (1988b) have both described the parti-
cular qualities that EAP teachers should possess if the EAP curri-
culum is to be successful. Teachers should be willing to adjust
teaching activities and materials to the students' needs, to familiarise
themselves with the language of the students' special subject and to
take an interest in and to acquire a knowledge of the students' world.
EAP teachers should understand that the students' knowledge of
their specialist world is likely to be considerably greater than their
own, have ¯exibility and skill in needs analysis, be able to design
specialist courses, to design new materials or adapt existing ones, and
to work with students of very different linguistic abilities within one
classroom. In addition, in some EAP situations teachers must be able
to co-operate with subject teachers.1 The need for these skills is
perhaps greater for EAP than in many other areas of ESL. Altered
perspectives such as these should also affect how teachers view their
classrooms (Woods, 1996).
The role of the learner

EAP learners need to be able to develop the skills they require to
study alone and this makes it clear that an important part of EAP
methodology is promoting learner independence. Learners have
1
See, e.g., the chapters by Brinton and Holten and Dudley-Evans on collaboration with
subject specialists.
many opportunities to promote their English and academic study

skills outside the classroom, and teachers who neglect to foster their
students' ability to use these opportunities are failing to help make
their learners independent. By asking learners to research and investi-
gate the resources available to them inside and outside the academy,
as well as encouraging learners to take responsibility for their own
learning, teachers will set their students on the path to full indepen-
dence.
Teaching materials
Once a syllabus has been established, teaching materials need to be
selected. A dif®cult choice for many EAP course designers and
teachers is between published materials and materials made speci®-
cally for the target EAP course. Kuo (1993), however, recommends
that we `need not take an all-or-nothing approach . . . (EAP) text-
books may serve as a kind of data bank', allowing teachers to choose
the materials that are most appropriate for any one class among
those in a small collection.
Another choice is between authentic and non-authentic materials.
Three common arguments in favour of authentic texts are that non-
authentic texts cannot represent real-world language use, that
simpli®ed materials often lose some meaning with simpli®cation and
that the real-world situations learners will face or are already facing
are best prepared for with authentic texts. Among the arguments
against the use of authentic texts are that any one authentic text
may not be authentic for a speci®c class, the fact that just because a
text is authentic does not mean it is relevant (the distinction
between authenticity of text and authenticity of purpose) and the
obvious point that authentic texts are frequently too dif®cult
linguistically, and for classes of students from various disciplines
may require too high a level of specialised knowledge. Kuo (1993)
concludes on the question of authenticity that it is almost impossible
for authentic texts to be always appropriate, and that the important
point with any text is appropriate selection and use. Certainly the
choice of any language teaching materials must be made with the
proper context in which the materials will be used kept ®rmly in
mind. It must also be remembered that each EAP discipline has its
own specialised style of language use (discourse), and that this style
should ± if possible ± be incorporated into the teaching materials
selected (see Widdowson, 1983; Hutchinson and Waters, 1987;
Phillips and Shettlesworth, 1978, on the debate surrounding authen-
ticity).
EAP methodology
EAP/ESP is generally claimed not to have a single speci®c method-
ology (Strevens, 1988b). On the other hand, methodology employed
in speci®c ESP/EAP settings is quite often innovative or specialised
(Bloor and Bloor, 1986; T. Johns and Dudley-Evans, 1991). Most
consistently running through these innovative approaches to ESP/
EAP methodology is the notion of purposeful and authentic learning
activity. EAP practitioners are concerned that the learning goals and
activities that their learners engage in are meaningful in relation to
the speci®c purpose of their target discipline. This has resulted in an
emphasis on various types of task-based learning and the use of
authentic materials. Space allows us to describe brie¯y only a few
examples of such approaches.
A pioneering effort was developed by Herbolich (1979) at the
University of Kuwait in the late seventies. In order to teach his
students to read and write technical manuals, Herbolich set them the
task of designing and building box-kites and writing the accompany-
ing manual to go with them.
Working also in the Middle East (King Abdulaziz University, Saudi
Arabia) at about the same time as Herbolich, and also concerned
with the relationship between authentic task and language learning
activity, Phillips (1981) developed an approach to ESP methodology
based upon the following two precepts: (1) the structure of LSP tasks
must be determined by the structure of the behavioural objectives of
the learner's special purpose, and (2) this structure must be at the
highest practicable level of focus. From this position Phillips devel-
oped four principles, as follows:
the principal of reality control: control of task dif®culty should be
determined by simplifying the task in terms of the speci®c
purpose and not just by simplifying the language.
the principle of non-triviality: the learning tasks must be perceived by
the learner as meaningfully generated by the special purpose.
the principle of authenticity: the language acquired must be authentic
to the speci®c purpose
the principle of the tolerance of error: errors should be treated as
unacceptable only if they compromise communicative adequacy.
Emphasising methodology over content, Hall and Kenny (1988)
described a pre-sessional EAP course in a Thai university in which
`Our syllabus is speci®ed in terms of its methodology rather than in
terms of linguistic items or skills' (p. 20). Concerned that the course
should prepare learners for the sort of activities that they will be
confronted with in their real-life programme of study, the course

begins with a deep-end strategy of confronting learners with actual
tasks, which they will have to perform as fully ¯edged students in an
English-medium university. In this way Hall and Kenny encourage a
method of work that involves `initiative, the sharing of ideas and a
focus on the ``how'' and ``why'' of investigation rather than on the
``what''' (p. 21). The emphasis is here again on purposefulness and
authenticity.
With task-based approaches the role of the teacher becomes one of
guide and advisor rather than omniscient source of knowledge. Such
an approach ®ts in with recent work in North America based upon
the work of the Soviet theorist Vygotsky. In pioneering literacy
pedagogy at San Diego State University, A. Johns (forthcoming)
describes how literacy teachers can provide scaffolding or assisted
performance in the performance of such tasks. Citing Vygotsky's
Zone of Proximal Development, Johns describes how the Soviet
theorist argued for whole activities which could be partitioned into
units that contain essential characteristics of the whole. Johns
demonstrates how teachers can assist learners in various ways in the
performance of these units, or tasks, through assisted performance:
by modelling an activity, by providing feedback and by cognitive
structuring (organisation of learners' cognitive activities). Funda-
mental to John's approach is close collaboration with content
teachers, a methodology she has documented in an earlier publication
(A. Johns, 1997a).
Teaching the different skills

Considerable research has been conducted in recent years into the
teaching of the four macro-skills (reading, writing, listening and
speaking) in EAP and a considerable literature has been built up on
each. Here we can do no more than indicate some of the key issues.
Reading
Reading, as a skill for EAP students, is often linked to writing
because the former often precedes the latter within the target
disciplines. Students read textbooks and journal articles with the goal
of extracting relevant information and ideas for writing up assign-
ments, examinations and dissertations, etc. For this reason, reading
teachers often focus on reading skills they believe will be useful when
students write extensively (see Bloor and St John, 1988). Examples
are distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information, note-taking
skills, skimming and scanning skills, understanding connections

between paragraphs and between sections, use of cohesive and other
markers and interpreting the writer's point of view.
Reading is probably the skill needed by the greatest number of
EAP students throughout the world. Many textbooks are available
only in English and most of the specialist international journals are
published only in English. Even if the medium of instruction is not
English, therefore, students throughout the world need to be able to
read in English. EAP reading involves a number of speci®c dif®culties
(Grellet, 1981). The registers/genres of different disciplines are
different from those of `general English'. Students may do well in
`reading lessons' in general English, but have dif®culty in reading in
their subject areas. Also the aims are different: reading narrative may
be for enjoyment alone, but in subject areas students often read to
perform some task ± to learn about something, get information, learn
how to do something or draw material for argument. This dichotomy
was highlighted by Johns and Davies (1983) in the mnemonic for
dealing with texts in the classroom, Text as a Linguistic Object
(TALO) and Text as a Vehicle for Information (TAVI).
Reading is often neglected by subject teachers. Nuttall (1996)
points out that although reading textbooks is vital for assignments,
projects and exams, students are often not taught how to read
textbooks and there is a tendency for subject teachers to use the
following strategies: explain in spoken language, sometimes the L1,
give notes because the textbook is `too dif®cult' and even write the
notes on the board, in which case students spend the lesson writing.
These strategies may help students learn the content, but will not
help them to improve their content reading skills or to be indepen-
dent learners. The learning of the process of reading, particularly
extracting and organising information into their own notes, is
perhaps educationally more important than learning sets of informa-
tion. When choosing texts for reading at lower levels, a strong
argument can be made for using coursebooks. At higher levels, a
problem emerges ± if authentic texts are used, students may mis-
understand or misinterpret the text; but if lower level texts are used,
students may be bored or feel insulted by the low level of the content.
One solution is to take topics the students have to study and look in
technical journals for articles in the same subject area. Lower level
EAP courses often use popular journals and these are a very good
source.
There are a number of macro- and micro-reading skills that EAP
students need to develop (Munby, 1978; De Escorcia, 1984; Nuttall,
1996). Among the former, students need to be able to make use of
their existing knowledge to make sense of new material, and ®t new

knowledge into their schema. They need skimming and scanning
skills in order to get an idea of the overall structure and organisation
of a text, and the primary and secondary information in it, along
with prediction skills. Students also need to learn how to select and
organise information (to distinguish important from less important
information in text) to read selectively for a particular purpose and
know how to make notes from a text. Other important skills are the
ability to evaluate and use information (particularly about the lesson
focus, discussion purpose and exact tasks to be done), and to see the
implications of the reading.
Important micro skills for EAP reading include recognising logical
relationships (Sawyer, 1989), e.g. cause and effect, time, condition,
comparison and contrast; recognising de®nitions, generalisations,
examples, explanations and predictions; and distinguishing fact from
opinion, which might be achieved by recognising markers (also see
Huckin, 1988). Further necessary skills are coping with vocabulary
(especially in lexically dense text), and identifying and learning
technical, ®eld-speci®c terms (as opposed to non-®eld speci®c terms)
they may have problems with. Some useful strategies here are the use
of context clues to work out meanings, the unpacking of classi®er/
thing structures (compound nouns), the ability to recognise
`technicalised' everyday words and prioritising essential words from
words that are important, but not essential for text comprehension.
Carrell and Carson (1997: 56) have suggested that EAP students
need both intensive and extensive instruction and practice in reading
skills ± the former so that they can acquire the particular reading
strategies such as (for example) reading for detail and distinguishing
main ideas and evidence that they need, and the latter to gain the
experience in extensive reading and ability to deal with large
amounts of text required by all academic disciplines.
Writing
Writing as a skill for EAP has been described in idealised terms by
Johnson, Shek, and Law (199: 86) as `the most deliberative act of
communication that we engage in . . . writers have an array of
strategies to use at each stage of the writing process'. The reality,
though, is different: ®rst-year EAP students are normally set a
number of writing assignments, often relatively simple, yet they often
end up being accused ± justi®ably ± of plagiarism. Students are often
unaware of the range of genres among different disciplines and also
unable to reprocess information, perhaps because they have not been
taught the necessary steps and procedures in secondary school (Reid

and Lindstrom, 1985). EAP students need to be able to plan for
writing, select and organise content before writing, review and revise
successive drafts and proof-read to ensure that the product is
improved, based on their knowledge of the subject and their knowl-
edge of the language.
As Leki (1995a) points out, it is dif®cult to design writing tasks for
students that take account of the linguistic and conceptual stages
they have reached, and to give the appropriate amount of guidance.
Writing activities for the early stages might include gap-®lling,
sentence completion, dictation and information transfer; in the next
or intermediate stage, instruction can focus on cross-disciplinary
genres ± the narrative, procedures, reports, explanations, exposition
and discussion of their subject. Each academic discipline differs in its
ways of arguing for a particular point of view, interpreting data,
considering different sides of an argument and drawing conclusions.
EAP writing, certainly at the more speci®c levels, places emphasis on
the socially constructed nature of writing, how the norms and values
of the target discipline shape the features of the target genres
(Dudley-Evans, 1984a). Swales and Feak (1994) is a good example of
an advanced writing course that focuses on disciplinary differences as
well as general writing and research skills for postgraduate students.
Much discussion in EAP writing revolves around the question of
whether to focus on product or process ± to view writing as a single
production or as a process (see Johns and Dudley-Evans, 1991). A
typical product-oriented classroom writing cycle (Reid, 1988) is
setting up a context (exploring the situations that require a particular
register/genre audience, purpose, topic), modelling (by reading texts
of the appropriate genre), noticing (setting tasks that draw students'
attention to typical features of the texts, including staging, functions
and grammatical features), explicit genre analysis (when students,
prompted by the teacher, work out the major features of the text ±
the function, styles, schematic stages and linguistic features of the
genre), information transfer (often pairwork), and text comparison.
This can be followed by controlled production, e.g. text completion,
text reconstruction and text reordering; and ®nally independent
production of drafts, when students individually or in groups choose
a topic within the target genre, do the necessary research and write
the text. Feedback might include a degree of individual and group
conferencing before publishing the ®nal draft.
A typical process-oriented classroom writing cycle, has the fol-
lowing steps, generally with students working in pairs or groups:
taking preliminary decisions, composing a rough draft, revising the
rough draft, preparing a second draft, further revisions and re-

working of drafts, further evaluation and writing the ®nal draft (see
also Leki, 1995a). Each stage needs input from the teacher and from
classmates through the use of peer feedback (negotiation ± the joint
construction of a new text within the same genre, to prepare for the
independent construction of a text), and also a balance between
¯uency, expression and accuracy.
Speaking
There is a general consensus among ESL educators that oral language
is very important, yet speaking in EAP remains a relatively neglected
skill. This is unfortunate because apart from the speci®c speaking
needs learners may have, con®dence and ability in speaking tends to
carry over to the other skills. In addition, language pro®ciency of
non-native speakers is often informally evaluated on the basis of
spoken language. Subject teachers, for example, tend to judge NNS
students by how they express themselves orally and this judgement
can lead to teacher expectations that can strongly in¯uence academic
success.
Jordan (1997) describes typical EAP speaking skills as asking
questions during lectures and tutorials, participating in seminars and
discussions, giving presentations, interacting in laboratory and work-
shop settings and describing data (see also Chirnside, 1986). Com-
pared with the research article, which is the most researched
academic genre, little work has been done to describe the spoken
academic genres.
An important area of EAP speaking instruction is directed towards
seminar participation. There is some literature on the discourse of
seminars. The ®ndings indicate a wide range of seminar types,
ranging from a monologue by the seminar leader to a free for all
discussion. Johns and Johns (1977) note that this variation tends to
depend upon the different disciplines. More discussion is traditional
in the humanities, with more teacher dominance in the natural
sciences. However, there are also cultural differences; Asian cultures,
for example, tend to encourage less student participation, with more
deference accorded to the teacher (Flowerdew and Miller, 1995,
1996).
Lynch and Anderson (cited in Jordan, 1997: 197) list a range of
problems in seminar speaking:
the publicness of the performance

the need to think on your feet
the requirement to call up relevant subject knowledge

the need to present logically ordered arguments
the fact that speakers may be being assessed on their contribution
In mixed classes of native and non-native speakers, native speakers

tend to have the advantage over non-natives, who may have had little
opportunity to practise speaking in English. In mixed seminars of
NSs and NNSs Furneaux et al. (1991) noted very few examples of
NNSs breaking into the discussion. In Hong Kong, where most of the
universities are of®cially English-medium, while many Cantonese-
speaking academic staff will lecture in English, very few conduct
tutorials in the second language (Flowerdew, Li and Miller, 1998). As
well as students' dif®culties in expressing themselves in English in
tutorials, lecturers claim that a greater sense of rapport is developed
if the mother tongue is used. Although Cantonese is used in this de
jure English-medium context, there is considerable code-mixing of
technical terms.
Another important focus of EAP speaking instruction is the oral
presentation. The discourse structure of the typical oral presentation
has been described by Price (1977) as follows: general introduction;
statement of intention; information in detail; conclusion; invitation
to discuss. Lynch and Anderson (1991) recommend the following
areas of focus for the teaching of oral/seminar presentations: sequen-
cing; signposting; delivery; visual aids; body language; and con-
cluding.
Cultural background is an important factor in EAP speaking. In
many societies students are not expected to speak in lectures or
seminars. The teacher is the authority and this authority is not
expected to be challenged. Cultural background may thus explain the
apparent reticence of NNS students to participate when they study
overseas in English-speaking countries or when they are taught by
Westerners in their own countries (Flowerdew and Miller, 1995,
1996).
Listening
Most of the work in academic listening research has focused on
lectures (see, e.g., the papers in Flowerdew [1994a]), although
seminar participation is another language event where listening skills
are needed. Interactive, or conversational listening, however, is
usually dealt with along with speaking.
The key issues in lecture listening research revolve around the
question of authenticity and the goal of preparing learners to
comprehend an extensive monologue presented in real time without

the facilitative features of interactive listening, such as asking for
repetition or clari®cation and speaker modi®cation of delivery to
make comprehension easier for non-native speakers. Should teachers
adopt a `deep-end' strategy of presenting learners with live or
recorded authentic lectures and training them to extract key informa-
tion, as they will have to do in their target disciplines, or should they
use simpli®ed texts, more easily understood by learners, but not a
true re¯ection of what learners are likely to have to do in their target
disciplines?
Comprehension theory assumes that linguistic messages are pro-
cessed in two parallel processes ± bottom up (decoding the sounds,
words, phrases and sentences and then relating this to contextual
knowledge) and top down (starting with inferential processes and
contextual knowledge and then invoking the lower level processes
where required) (Flowerdew, 1994a). Approaches to teaching re¯ect
these two views. Bottom-up teaching methods emphasise decoding
the individual components of the linguistic message as the starting
point, while top-down methods emphasise the need for learners to
apply their inferential processes to extract meaning, only focusing on
the linguistic components where necessary. Given the limited time
available for most EAP courses, the top-down approach is perhaps
more cost effective, while the bottom-up approach is more applicable
for more wide angle EAP where more time is available. Taxonomies
of listening micro-skills have been produced by Munby (1978),
Richards (1983) and Powers (1986), and these form the basis for
designing many of the bottom-up, skills-focused, listening materials
which predominate in the commercial marketplace.
A further re¯ection of the bottom-up/top-down dichotomy is the
question of whether EAP listening pedagogy should be focused on
simpli®ed or authentic lecture discourse, as previously mentioned.
Authentic lectures have a number of distinctive features which set
this type of discourse apart from that of other genres. The phonolo-
gical dimension, of course, differentiates it from written text and the
fact that it is produced in `real time' means that listeners do not have
the opportunity to process lecture discourse more than once, unlike
readers of written text who may backtrack and ponder over the
language confronting them on the written page (Flowerdew, 1994c).
In many cases EAP listening materials are based on specially
prepared recordings of written text. This means that they differ from
authentic lecture discourse in that they have fewer false starts and
redundancies, are structured into sentences marked by full stops
rather than tone groups marked by pauses, ®lled pauses (ums and
ahs) or discourse markers (now, so, OK, and, etc.) and have a more
tightly structured grammar (Halliday, 1989). In many ways, listening
to a recording of a written text is a more dif®cult challenge than
listening to a spontaneous lecture. In a comparison of one authentic
lecture with materials used in second language textbooks, Flowerdew
and Miller (1997) highlighted a range of salient features in the
authentic lecture which they believed to be important for learners to
comprehend, but which were absent from the textbooks. In addition
to the linguistic characteristics of authentic lectures mentioned
above, Flowerdew and Miller (1997) noted the importance of the
body language of the lecturer, a range of interpersonal strategies used
by the lecturer to empathise with the audience and check on
comprehension, the use of `macro-markers' to refer backwards or
forwards in the lecture or to other lectures in the course, the use of
rhetorical questions, and the integration of the spoken monologue
with visual aids, written handouts, pre- and post-lecturer reading and
tutorial discussion. Arguing that such distinctive features are not
conducive to treatment in a textbook, Flowerdew and Miller suggest
that textbook materials should be supplemented by authentic lectures
which would allow learners to develop top-down strategies and
integrate listening with the other associated skills.
Flowerdew (1994c) suggests that a lot could be done to train
lecturers who teach NNSs and that such training might indeed be
more cost effective than investing yet more resources in improving
the pro®ciency level of their students. Indeed, in North America,
there is quite a literature on the training of international teaching
assistants (TAs), but there are few accounts of such lecturer training
outside North America (although see Lynch, 1994). Tauroza and
Allison (1994) suggest ways in which lecturers could improve their
delivery, including repetition, moderating speed, emphasising main
points, summarising, and speaking loudly and clearly. One area of
training which would be particularly bene®cial, Flowerdew and
Miller (1995, 1996) argue, is at the cultural level. In ethnographic
research conducted in Hong Kong, these researchers identi®ed a
whole range of features where there were potential mismatches
between the culture of the Hong Kong Chinese students and their
Western lecturers. These cross-cultural mismatches relate to ethnic
culture, local culture, academic culture and disciplinary culture.
Study skills
Because EAP is concerned with helping students use English to
learn, EAP teaching has always been associated with the various
study skills in which the language they teach their students is used.
Study skills encompass a wide range of activities. They include
listening and note-taking, reading skills such as skimming, scanning,
guessing meanings from context and using the dictionary, seminar
discussion, oral presentation, essay/thesis/laboratory report writing,
using the library, using computers in their various applications
(word-processing, the Internet, etc.), and even avoiding plagiarism
(see Jordan [1997: 7±8] for a more extensive list). Given the very
wide range of study skills needed in EAP, Waters and Waters argue
that developing students study skill competence is more important
than teaching the speci®c individual skills.
As technology comes to be used more in academic study, the
student's repertoire of required study skills is rapidly expanding. One
area worth special mention, because it is a language learning strategy
skill rather than a study skill to be applied to the content subject, is
the use of corpora and concordancing packages as a learning tool.
There is a lot of interest currently in devising effective ways of
helping students access the wealth of linguistic information available
in specialist corpora by the use of concordancers and related com-
puter software (Johns, 1988; Stevens, 1991a). Use of the internet has
so far not ®gured in the EAP literature, but doubtless this important
study aid will soon be researched.
Assessment
Student assessment for EAP is the measuring of students' language
ability and can be undertaken at different stages in their study
careers, by different means, and with different purposes. The main
aim of a test is not to say how appropriate or successful a course is,
but to measure the individual abilities of individual students so that a
comparison ± or ranking ± between students and of any one student
can be made. It is generally agreed that three different kinds of tests
are relevant to EAP: placement tests, which measure abilities at the
start of a course so that students can be placed in the right EAP class,
achievement tests, which test to what extent students have learned
the skills and items on a course, and pro®ciency tests, which do not
refer to any one course, but are normally used to assess and describe
students' linguistic abilities before enrolling on a course of study
(examples are TOEFL and IELTS). Assessment is a key issue in EAP,
given its important gate-keeping function within the institution or
nationally or internationally. Minimum scores on the international
pro®ciency tests are used by many universities as a guide to accep-
tance of students. Similarly, within the individual institution, pro®-
ciency scores or achievement scores on in-house English courses often

affect decisions on student progress in their content subjects. In many
universities, for example, students cannot graduate unless they have
achieved the university English requirement.
Alderson (1988), writing about ESP, refers to three aspects of
course design which are relevant to EAP assessment. The ®rst aspect
is test content, and particularly how close to the detailed content of a
course the test content should be. In EAP, the closer the number and
type of test items are to the content of the course, the stronger the
effect of washback (the effect of a test on teaching and learning) is
likely to be on that content. The second is test method, and here
Alderson suggests that we should be less concerned with numerical or
statistical validity than with making sure the items on the test match
as closely as possible the items taught on the course. This is true in
the EAP context for placement as well as achievement tests, and
should as an added advantage make the task of the test designer
easier. The third aspect is test validity, the examination of which calls
for evidence that the test measures what it claims to measure. Here
Alderson calls for the test to be a direct examination of student
performance; this suggestion is very relevant for EAP test construc-
tion, due to the focus of the EAP course on study and academic skills
and to the relative similarity of those skills across disciplines and
across places of study.
Programme evaluation
Programme evaluation for EAP means evaluating or re-evaluating the
course design ± the syllabus, materials, tasks and methods as they
were originally planned ± to see if the course is meeting its stated
objectives. Evaluation may be either formative ± i.e., on-going, as the
course progresses ± or summative ± i.e., at the end of the course.
Course evaluation should involve as many participants as possible
and this may mean students, teachers, subject teachers, the institution
and administrators. The broad range of views that these interested
parties can contribute will mean that a balanced and comprehensive
view of the course and its achievements may be obtained. The aim of
EAP course evaluation should be to measure the effectiveness of the
EAP course, and perhaps to make suggestions for change. Mechan-
isms for course evaluation include learner and teacher questionnaires
and interviews, learner diaries and teacher notes, materials evalua-
tion, test and other assessment results, and classroom observation.
This triangulated view may be comprehensive enough to act as an
appropriate basis for recommendations for course improvement. The
most comprehensive account of an EAP programme evaluation is

Celani et al. (1988). A more general collection is Alderson and
Beretta (1992).
Conclusion
As stated in the introduction, this chapter has provided an overview
of the key aspects of the EAP curriculum, from the initial analysis of
needs through to the ®nal programme evaluation. It is important to
bear in mind that the issues identi®ed as components of the EAP
curriculum should not be seen as a rigid series of procedures, but
rather as a cycle with a central focus, or axis, which inter-relates each
of the stages. Needs analysis cannot be undertaken without an initial
consideration of what sort of syllabus might be appropriate in a
given situation. Methodology cannot be formulated without consid-
eration of the roles of teachers and learners. Programme evaluation,
whilst considered the last stage in the curriculum process, should
nevertheless be considered at the outset, as parts of the needs
analysis. We hope that readers will bear this in mind as they read the
individual chapters of the collection, each of which focuses on one
particular dimension, but which cannot function in isolation from
the others.

the-eap-curriculum-issues-methods-and-challenges

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

the-eap-curriculum-issues-methods-and-challenges

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

the-eap-curriculum-issues-methods-and-challenges

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

11 The EAP curriculum: Issues,

methods, and challenges

English language teaching can be classi®ed into two main branches,

cultural backgrounds, and where approaches to language learning

The EAP syllabus

range of approaches to EAP syllabus design. The earliest they

and various hybrids of these basic types. Theme-based instruction is

The role of the teacher

The role of the learner

many opportunities to promote their English and academic study

confronted with in their real-life programme of study, the course

Teaching the different skills

skills, skimming and scanning skills, understanding connections

their existing knowledge to make sense of new material, and ®t new

taught the necessary steps and procedures in secondary school (Reid

rough draft, preparing a second draft, further revisions and re-

the publicness of the performance

the requirement to call up relevant subject knowledge

In mixed classes of native and non-native speakers, native speakers

comprehend an extensive monologue presented in real time without

ciency scores or achievement scores on in-house English courses often

most comprehensive account of an EAP programme evaluation is

You might also like