Search

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) aims to equip multilingual students with the tools to effectively engage in disciplinary academic communication, especially writing. An ongoing challenge is how to transfer students’ knowledge of language from the EAP classroom into their current and future disciplines (Monbec, 2018) and how to empower them as independent learners and collaborators in their knowledge development. This paper reports on an EAP curriculum project in which first-year international science students in British Columbia were scaffolded to conduct independent comparative discourse analysis to develop their academic literacy abilities. We demonstrate how students not only improved their understanding of specific language features, but also were empowered with the critical knowledge and skills to become apprentice scholars and active members in the science community. The students were therefore legitimized as academic apprentices, rather than framed as deficient in language or victims of circumstance (Gallagher & Haan, 2017). We therefore present evidence of non-linguist language students successfully conducting independent discourse analysis to further their own language and learning goals.

In a time when students around the globe continue to pursue their higher studies in English-speaking countries, educators also continue to explore innovative teaching methods and approaches in order to support learning. Universal design for learning (UDL) is an innovative teaching framework that has recently drawn considerable attention among educators and researchers alike in Canada. A UDL framework helps educators, including English-for-academic-purposes (EAP) and English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) instructors, consider learner variability, motivate and engage learners in in multiple ways, provide instructional resources and materials in various forms, and offer learners opportunities to demonstrate learning in alternate pathways. This article presents three core UDL principles: multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representation, and multiple means of action and expression and establishes connections to teaching EAP. The purpose is to interpret these three UDL principles and respective guidelines in EAP contexts and discuss how these principles and guidelines can be applied to EAP classrooms in order to support language learning in Canada.

The effective use of reporting verbs is an important part of establishing credibility in source-based writing. Although comparative studies of academic writing have shown that the reporting verbs used by novice and expert writers differ by discipline, fewer studies have examined whether such differences exist in English for academic purposes (EAP) writing, which often focuses on generic essay types as opposed to discipline-specific academic genres. Using a corpus of 1027 texts written by EAP students at an English-medium Canadian University, this study explored whether additional language (L2) writers’ reporting verb choices differed in cause-and-effect and argumentative essays. Adopting semantic classifications from previous research, the occurrence of 34 reporting verbs across four semantic categories (argue, think, find, show) in the two essay types were compared. Results indicated that EAP students relied on a limited number of reporting verbs regardless of essay type. In contrast to disciplinary writing, find verbs occurred infrequently while argue verbs were most frequent. Pedagogical implications are discussed in terms of the relationship between essay type and L2 writers’ use of reporting verbs.

One of the objectives of examining culture vis-à-vis additional language (L2) writing is to conceptualize an effective L2 writing pedagogy (Matsuda & Atkinson, 2008). Kaplan’s (1966) analysis of English as an additional language (EAL) texts was a pioneering endeavour in this regard, although due to ensuing controversy surrounding his claims, the desired goals of his effort were never achieved, leaving a gap in culture studies of L2 writing (Abasi, 2012; Belcher, 2014). This article reports on an investigation of student views on what instructors can do to help overcome cultural challenges L2 writers encounter in an English for academic purposes (EAP) context. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews and questionnaire surveys, this qualitative case study examined 27 students at a Canadian university. Data analysis yielded six categories of instructor support: (a) providing explicit feedback on writing; (b) providing English text structures; (c) using exemplars; (d) creating opportunities for in-class writing and reviews; (e) explaining cultural differences between first language (L1) and L2 writing; and (f) providing more writing practice. The findings underline the importance of instructors’ roles in unpacking various cultural underpinnings in L2 writing. Also, they support the (re)conceptualization of L2 writing pedagogy that integrates empirical evidence into instruction. The implications for L2 writing instruction are discussed.

While teaching students how to become independent learners offers great promise for their future academic success, research has yet to offer detailed insight into students’ evaluation of learning such strategies. The Study Skills for Independent Learning module was introduced as part of a Canadian university English for Academic Purposes (EAP) bridging program. The objective of the module was to help international students who had been conditionally accepted into their undergraduate programs acquire skills they could employ to become more independent learners during their undergraduate studies. The study set out to collect students’ perceptions of the module to better assess the efficacy of teaching independent study skills in an EAP context. Data were gathered from an analysis of the module’s overview and learning objectives, questionnaires from a group of students enrolled in the EAP program (n =7), and feedback from a retrospective focus group (n = 5) that consisted of students who had taken the module the previous year and had just completed the first semester of their undergraduate programs. Data were transcribed, coded, and organized into themes for analysis. Time management, reflective skills, and strategies for maintaining focus were identified as three transferable skills taught in the module.

Previous corpus research on English for academic purposes (EAP) writing has analyzed how often additional language (L2) writers use words from the Academic Word List (AWL) (Coxhead, 2000), but few studies to date have explored how accurately those words are used. Therefore, the current study investigated how accurately and appropriately EAP writers (N = 409) use AWL words in their argumentative essays. The 230,694-word corpus was analyzed to identify AWL word families that occurred with at least 20 tokens. All tokens were then coded as being accurately used, or as containing a morphosyntactic or collocational error (or both). The findings showed that the EAP students’ overall accuracy rate was high (67%) and that collocational errors occurred more frequently than grammatical errors. Pedagogical implications for EAP programs are discussed.

The rapid increase of Asian immigrant students in Canadian classrooms demands more systematic and increased language support to ensure all English language learners (ELLs) achieve success in school. However, research has found mixed results on the usefulness of current English as a Second Language (ESL) support programs and a growing dissatisfaction among students and parents about ESL, suggesting further investigation is needed to improve the provision of ESL in the schools. This paper details how one school and one ESL teacher responded to the needs of newly arrived Asian (i.e., Chinese) ELL students by documenting the school’s and teacher’s journey in revamping the pull-out ESL program into a culturally responsive English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program with a focus on immersion, community engagement, and a pedagogy of cultural reciprocity. The case has important implications for redesigning current ESL programs in the context of changing immigration.