The ‘context’ of EAP is changing: there are increased demands and challenges as student numbers rise overall with access to higher education broadening and markets for overseas students opening up. There will be growing numbers of students on a variety of preparation and foundation year courses. Change has come precipitously; we are all concerned with how we are going to cope with large numbers of Chinese students.
EAP is adjusting to increased demand by investing more in technology, learner support and training outside the classroom. Hardware, software, multi-media, self-access, notions of learner independence or autonomy: sometimes convertible, sometimes not. There is a serious issue of pedagogy, materials and training on the ground.
Current practice in EAP follows a language skill approach with a lot of time given to academic writing as the paramount skill. More overt emphasis could be given to other skills: conceptual and perceptual abilities, cognitive skills and metacognitive awareness, the nature of comunication in academic and professional discourse, description supported by explanation in language use and the fostering of an active, investigative approach to learning. This has implications for learner training, pedagogical style, materials and course design.
This paper discussed the above issues and related these to practice. It argued for an approach that demarginalises pedagogy and learning theory in current EAP practice. It was aimed at practicing teachers and the issue of practice and emphasis in the EAP classroom. Teachers were asked to consider some practical classroom materials: An item of text from a popular science periodical, an edition of the BBC televised news (worksheet) and a newspaper report and editorial. The focus was on holistic/text based activities. The materials were selected according to adaptability: generic textual qualities (EGAP) and to satisfy the demand for specificity (ESAP). Exercises were devised to demonstrate an integration of top-down and bottom-up decoding strategies. An important element in the methodology/approach used was explicit use of the techniques of Genre Analysis.
Genre Analysis adds the dimension of explanation to description; it fuses the linguistic with the social and psychological. Activities focused on the steps and moves (Swales:1990) and more generally, the cognitive structuring (Bhatia:1993) of a text. Text-mapping and text-patterning activities were included as were bottom-up activities involving the use of inferencing and reference skills. Identifying the discourse/generic structure is another activity in each of the exercises: students are asked to consider how this might be represented non-verbally. They are encouraged to think about learning metacognitively in terms of task and strategy knowledge (Wenden: 1991). Speaking and writing activities emphasised the move from process to production. This approach emphasises a conscious, explicit and articulated approach to learning in general and to EGAP/ESAP in particular. Most importantly it emphasises an active and investigative approach to self-study and learning in EAP.