General or SubjectSpecific EAP

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General or Subject-Specific EAP?

• EAP English for Academic Purposes
• General Issues in EAP

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3 approaches to EAPStudy Skills Approach

• Richards et. Al. (1992) defines skills as
• Abilities, techniques and strategies which are
  used when reading, writing or listening for study
  purposes. For example, study skills needed by
  university students studying English language
  textbooks includeadjusting reading speeds
  according to the type of material being read,
  using the dictionary, guessing word meanings from
  context, interpreting graphs, diagrams, and
  symbols, note taking and summarising.

The basis of this approach ist hat students need
more than linguistic knowledge to be sucessful in
their studies. There are common reasoning and
interpreting processes underlying communication
which help us to understand discourse. It is seen
as being more productive to focus on
interpretative strategies and other competences.
For example, the life circle of plants might be
used to teach biology students the language of
process (Bates and Dudley-Evans, 1976)
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3 approaches to EAPDisciplinary Socialization
important new sphere of activity which is much
broader than skills teaching it locates EAP at
the heart of university teaching and learning and
of studentsorientation to, and sucess in, their
fields of study

• sees learning as an acculturation or induction
  into a new culture rather than an extension of
  existing skills.

- draws attention to the importance of discourse
and its role in defining disciplinary groups By
engaging in certain discourses people participate
in and build communities and disciplines.
study skills approach and disciplinary
socialization apporach respond to chances in
tertiary education by supporting students in
learning the unfamiliar demands of new kinds of
discourses
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3 approaches to EAPAcademic Literacies
- frames language as discourse practice, the way
language is used in particluar contexts. It links
language with action and emphasizes context. The
participantsexperiences of contexts is the most
important dimension
The ways language is used is referred to as
literacy practices, which are patterned by
social institutions and power relationships. Gee
(1990) stresses the importance of the cultural
shift someone cannot engage in a discourse in
a less than fluent manner. You are either in it
or not.
Academic success means representing yourself in a
way valued by your discipline, adopting the
values, beliefs and identities which academic
discourses embody
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...
All 3 approaches are concerned with
studentsimmediate needs and experiences in the
academy, but none explicitly refers to the
post-university world of work.
Is EAP primarily a straightforward exercise in
teaching study skills, a means of socializing
students into fields of study, or a way of
helping students navigate their ways through
conflicting issues of power and identity?
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Distinction between
English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP)
English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP)

• teaching of skills and language which are related
  to the demands of a particular discipline or
  department

• skills, language forms and
• study activities thought to be
• common to all disciplines
• -gt generic academic practices
• questioning, note taking, summary writing,
  giving presentations,

Issue of specificity therefore challanges EAP
teachers to take stance
Are there skills and features of language that
are transferable across different disciplines?
Should they focus on the texts, skills and forms
needed by learners in distinct disciplines?
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Questions, Ideas and Views
Are there generic skills and language
forms/functions that are useful across different
fields? - active/productive skills such as
writing and speaking - passive/receptive skills
such as listening and reading - techniques for
those skills (e.g. reading effectively)

• Is learning more effective if it is based on the
  specific conventions and skills used in the
  studentstarget discipline?
• - specific vocabulary can be taught
• - student sees a connection between learning and
  usage (motivation)

• Is there a middle way?
• - controversy between theory and practice
• - what is possible to realize? (teachers,
  university, students)

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Questions, Ideas and Views

• Halliday et al. (1964)
• - original conception of ESP
• - centred on the language and activities
  appropriate to particular disciplines and
  occupations
• there is a need to stress studentstarget goals
  and to prioritize the competences they should
  develop and these often relate to the particular
  fields in which they will mainly operate

Hutchison and Waters (1987) / Blue (1988) / Spack
(1988) - emphasis should be on learners and
learning rather than on target texts and practices
Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998) - teachers
should first help students develop core academic
skills with more specific work to be accomplished
later
Specific EAP
General EAP
middle way
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Reasons for General EAP

• teacher
• - lack the training, expertise and confidence to
  teach subject-specific.
• student
• - abilities on different levels weaker students
  are not ready for discipline-specific language
• role of EAP in university
• - low-status service role, if teaching
  subject-specific skills (no independent subject
  knowledge and skills)
• - EAP encourages unimaginative and formulaic
  essays, if the courses are based on the
  communicative demands of particular courses and
  disciplines.
• - Need for training excercise to develop
  skills and familarity with specific schemata.
• - generic skills which are said to differ very
  little across the disciplinese.g., skimming and
  scanning texts for information, taking notes,

EAP courses should focus on a common core
Which of these arguments seems to be most
persuasive and why?
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Ruth Spack (1988)Initiating ESL students into
academic discourse community how far should we
go?
The disadvantages of such a program ESAP are
equally, if not more, significant it is
difficult for a writing course to have a
carefully planned pedagogical or rhetorical
rationale when it is dependent on another content
course -gt the timing of assignments is not
always optimal the program can raise false
expectations English faculty find they have
little basis for dealing with the content -gt
position of being less knowledgeable than their
students Students finding themselves in a
situation in which their instructor cannot fully
explain or answer questions about the subject
matter collaborative courses in which completely
different criteria for evaluation were applied to
studentspapers lack of control over the
content English teachers use technical and
scientific materials they are not familiar with
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Ruth Spack
To learn to write in any discipline, students
must become immersed in the subject matter. They
learn by participating in the field, by doing, by
sharing, and by talking about it with those who
know more, by observing the process through
which professional academic writers produce
texts. They will learn efficently from teachers
who have a solid grounding in the subject matter
and who have been through the process themselves.
I do not deny that programs that instruct
students to write in other disciplines can work.
But a review of L1 literature and the L2
literature on successful programs reveals that
the teachers are immersed in the discipline.

• we should leave the teaching of writing in the
  disciplines
• to the teachers of those disciplines

The English composition course could and should
be a humanities course a place where students
are provided the enrichment of reading and
writing that provoke thought and foster their
intellectual and ethical development.
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Reasons for Specific EAP

• teacher
• - Lea and Strees (1999) subject tutors saw
  academic writing conventions as self-evident and
  universal
• students
• - (SLA) students aquire features of the
  language as they need them,
• no need to ignore specific language uses at any
  stage.
• -gt language in EAP carries clear disciplinary
  values, teachers/students have to be familiar
  with the actual communicative practices.
• Role of EAP in university
• - General EAP as a Band-Aid measure to fix up
  deficiencies?!
• Whereas ESAP view recognizes the complexity of
  engaging in the specific literacies of the
  disciplines
• - doubts over a common core of language items
  (meaning and use have to be seen in context)
• - EAP classes already teach a range of
  subject-specific communicative skills

Ann Johns (1988) discipline, audience and
context significantly influence the language
required. Students must therefore readjust
somewhat to each academic discipline they
encounter.
Which of these arguments seems to be most
persuasive and why?
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Ken Hyland (2002)Specificity revisited how far
should we go now?

• The idea of professional communities, each with
  its own particular practices, genres, and
  communicative conventions, thus leads us towards
  a specific role for ESP.
• Students cross boundaries. Students need to
  function in numerous social environments and that
  our courses should equip them with the necessary
  skills to do so. The notion of specificity
  thus provides learners with a way of
  understanding the diversity they encounter at
  university. It shows them that literacy is
  relative to the beliefs and practices of social
  groups.

the teaching of specific skills and rhetoric
cannot be divorced from the teaching of a subject
itself
Why? (example of writing)

• - writing tasks at university are specific to
  discipline and related to educational level
• genre categories blur and the structure of
  common formats (such as lab reports) can
• differ completely across disciplines
• academic genres are actually forms of social
  action
• disciplinary texts vary (content, background
  knowledge,)

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Ken Hyland
Putting the S back into ESP the field seeks
to go to the practices of real people
communication in real context.
By divorcing language from context learner are
mislead into believing that they simply have to
master a set of rules which can be transferred
across fields.
Reports, memos, presentations take on meaning
only when they are situated in real context.
Students communicate effectively only by using a
disciplines particular conventions
Establishing exactly what are the specific
language, skills, and genres of particular groups
well may be expensive, time-consuming and
skills-intensive. But this research makes
teaching effective and practices professional
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How far should we go now?
Ruth Spack
Ken Hyland
To learn to write in any discipline, students
must become immersed in the subject matter. They
learn by participating in the field
Students communicate effectively only by using a
disciplines particular conventions
The ways the writers present their arguments,
control their rhetorical personality, and engage
their readers reflect preferred disciplinary
practices
They will learn efficently from teachers who have
a solid grounding in the subject matter
effective language teaching in the universities
involves taking specificity seriously.
we should leave the teaching of writing in the
disciplines to the teachers of those disciplines
It means that we must go as far as we can.
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Links / EAP in the Internet
www.uefap.com
focus on students hints on skills (e.g.
Strategies for reading academic texts
excercises) literature to EAP
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Links / EAP in the Internet
 http//elc.polyu.edu.hk/cill/eap/
focus on students orientation on language
(Grammar explaination, Vocabulary List, ) and
writing skills
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Links / EAP in the Internet
www.elsevier.com/wps/find/homepage.cws_home
Download articles such as Dimensions of
difference a comparision of university writing
and IELTS writing Pattern and meaning across
genres and disciplines An exploratory study EAP
issues and directions puplished in Journal of
English for Academic Purposes
www.elseviersocialsciences.com/linguistics/jeap
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Bibliography
Hyland, Ken (2006) English for Academic
Purposes. An Advanced Resource Book. Oxon
Routledge. Hyland, Ken (2002) Specificity
revisited how far should we go now?. English
for Specific Purposes. 21. 385-95. Spack, Ruth
(1988) Initiating ESL students into the academic
discourse community how far should we go?.
TESOL Quarterly. 22 (1). 29-52.