Designing EAP Courses for Success

Needs Analysis is a significant issue in language teaching programs, because English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses are designed by examining students' purposes and assessing their needs. This study attempts to analyze the Bangladeshi context of EAP, specifically for the students majoring in Arts, Humanities, and Legal Studies. The instruments used included questionnaire for students (n=100) of tertiary level; interviews with teachers (n=10) of two universities (one public and one private) of Chattogram. The study provides an overview of some important issues pertaining to EAP needs analysis in English as Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) contexts. This research provides insights for language policy makers and the practitioners to increase the effectiveness of EAP courses at the tertiary level by through needs analysis.

Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2011

The purpose of the study is to explore English as a foreign language (EFL) college students' needs in English for General Purposes (EGP) and English for Specific/Academic Purposes (ESP/EAP) courses in terms of their perceptions of three subcategories of needsdnecessities, wants, and lacksdand reasons for students' course enrollment. A questionnaire was administered to 972 EFL college students from six universities in Taiwan. The results showed that students had different perceptions of necessities, wants, and lacks in the different language skills taught in EGP and ESP/EAP courses. The findings also demonstrated discrepancies between the students' perceptions of needs and the actual courses they took, thereby highlighting the importance of understanding needs as a complex, multiple, and conflicting concept. Finally, factors that determined students' enrollment in EGP courses included necessities, short-term, and long-term goals while enrollment in ESP/EAP courses depended more on job relevancy. Implications for language instructors and curriculum designers are discussed.

The Journal of AsiaTEFL, 2020

This study determines the need to strengthen the English Orientation Program (EOP) for foreign language learners especially due to the changes in the Philippine educational system from K-10 to K-12 curriculum that demands higher competency in the use of English in the various academic fields of study. Specifically, this study proposes to redesign the EOP into English for Academic Purposes Program with some modifications and enhancements based on the needs of the students. Thus, this study attempts to determine the language needs of foreign students. First, it determines the needs of foreign students in the four macro skills. Second, it identifies the difficulties experienced by foreign students as perceived by both their content and language teachers. Hence, identifying these needs and difficulties would be helpful in creating syllabi for English programs. Results showed that students identified the problem in vocabulary, taking down notes when listening to lectures, understanding the text when reading texts, and finding the appropriate words when reporting and when writing; this finding on writing is affirmed by language teachers. For the content teachers, they find these skills problematic for their students: pronunciation in speaking, and listening to instructions resulting in not being able to perform tasks well.

English for Specific Purposes, 2001

book is a summary of the author's immense knowledge of EAP. In a plenary address at the 1999 European LSP Symposium it was cited alongside Robinson (1991) and Swales (1990) as a standard work in anglophone studies of Languages for Speci®c Purposes, and this is a measure of its status and impressive quality.

OUSL Journal, 2015

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.

The presentation will introduce educators who are new to teaching English language learners to the fundamentals of providing students with effective instruction in academic language and literacy within the mainstream curriculum. Participants will explore the diverse needs of language minority students and learn their legal obligations to provide meaningful access to the grade-level general curriculum. The presentation will equip partcipants with key principles of language learning, an outline of research-based best practices, and quick strategies they can implement immediately in their instruction.

This case study delineated on such challenges faced whilst designing and teaching English for Academic Preparation Module to a multilingual beginner level English group of students at Forman Christian College (A Chartered University) covering various phases over this thrash about, firstly, the pedagogical underpinnings for the English Language course design and learning goals for the course were highlighted as interact effectively in myriad contexts and with many different speakers, learners needed to develop a repertoire of practical situation-dependent communicative choices. The paper used the reflective artifacts to review the paradigmatic issues in an English immersion program. It presented detailed considerations for teachers designing a communicative language course, documented the encountered problems, issues in restructuring the curricula and how the existing course changed through the thorough reflections and collaboration on the teaching practices, teachers' perspectives and the needs of the learners. Corresponding teaching methods and class activities were also revisited. 1. Introduction The role of English language teacher is ever more critical and challenging when it comes to developing the desired level of language communication skills among the nonnative speaking students. Communication skills aim to foster critical thinking skills, analytical reasoning, public speaking, verbal and nonverbal skills that help the learners survive in a higher education institute. Many students seeking to secure entrance to a university program where English is the medium of instructions do not have adequate language skills primarily to comprehend instructions, listening to lectures, figure out textbooks, take part in discussions, and able to produce coherent written work that ultimately result in being depreciate towards their studies leading them to be added in the ever-increasing list of dropout students. For these reasons, some universities offer foundation or pre-university programs to help students improve their language skills; however, students need support in more than just language skills because in the university environment they are expected to think, to reason, to communicate, and to continue their learning outside the classroom. In actuality, Troudi (2005, p.8) states, " English is now a gatekeeper to better jobs and professional opportunities in places where it was just a foreign language fewer than two decades ago. " It's a well known fact that to succeed in the higher education programs, even going farther to succeed professionally, the learners need to have strong command over English language that requires the cohesive as well as inclusive effort, a committed engagement of the management, educationists and practitioners to revisit the programs, policies and practices with the critical viewpoint. Such a language program is the result of efforts, through a scrupulous analysis at FCC. Therein it evaluates the English language program that aims at extending adequate help to those who are struggling to learn L2 i.e. English. This article will choke out certain prominent phases of the FC College and now a Chartered University's all inclusive efforts to revise its language curricula thoroughly and how it refurbishes methodically and systemizes the whole effort through the proper channel to execute their IEAP (Intensive English for Academic Preparation) Program through the faculty efforts with extensive collaboration, to quip prospective university students' syllabi, to design planners in a systemic that includes activities, assessment patterns, objectives, rubrics and benchmarks that coach and train students in a way that fulfills their academic English language skills criteria leads to university success (Cunningsworth,1995).

English for academic purpose (EAP) emerged as a branch of English for specific purposes in the early 1980s. EAP grounds English language teaching in the linguistic demands of academic context, tailoring instruction to specific rather than general purposes. There is a growth of interest in EAP in the recent years. The interest in EAP developed in response to the growing need for intercultural awareness and of English as a lingua franca (ELF). EAP has become a major area of research in applied linguistics and focus of the courses studied worldwide by a large number of students preparing for study in colleges and universities. The increase in students' undertaking tertiary studies in English-speaking countries has led to a steady demand for the courses tailored to meet the immediate, specific vocational and professional needs. Thus, most universities in the present day world prioritize the role of academic skills. The aim of the paper is to examine the key approaches to the teaching of English for academic purposes, current trends in teaching EAP, and to argue the centrality and significance of EAP in the academia. The paper concludes by arguing that a greater emphasis needs to be placed on methodology in EAP.

Englishes in Practice, 2016

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is an established domain of research, teaching, and assessment within additional/second language education. In this article we examine the conceptualisation of English that underpins much of its current thinking and pedagogic practice, and raise questions of validity and claims of ‘fit-for-purpose’. In particular we explore issues underpinning EAP assessment and argue that there is a need to reconceptualise the basis of the language model. We propose that given the complex and changing practices in academic communication, there is a good case for broadening the established understanding of Academic English to better reflect target language use. The principles and arguments underlying this discussion are relevant to assessment as well as to EAP more broadly.