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In the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classroom, speaking is a relatively marginalised learning activity, often employed merely to facilitate transition between activities which prioritise communication skills deemed more important. A significant consequence of this privation is limited practice in situated discourse. This paper presents a theorised account of an instance of situated discourse: Quality Talk in a reading circle within an EAP classroom. With reference to a single dialogic spell unfolding around a specific issue, I examine participants' verbal transactions and the ways in which these enhance high-level comprehension of text. Overall, this account seeks to highlight the efficacy and affordances of situated discourse as a social mode of cognition in EAP instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the dominance of the communicative approach in teaching English as a Foreign Language over the past several decades, translation as a mode of instruction has been excluded from the methodological rationale. Using translation was considered even harmful, as the predominant understanding among experts in the field was that translating is not conducive to thinking in the target language (L2). However, recent studies of some translation techniques in the field have shown the viability of learning core vocabulary especially terms and terminological multiword expressions in the mother tongue. That is true to a large extent for teaching English for Specific Purposes and particularly for teaching English for Academic Purposes. In the university settings, especially in former Eastern European countries, Bulgaria included in that number, the insufficient number of school hours has necessitated the use of flexible approaches to teaching English. This is in line with the main goal of teaching English for Academic Purposes – the best possible acquisition of new vocabulary by undergraduate students. This paper delves into the problem of the effectiveness of using translation techniques in teaching terminology to undergraduate bachelor students in the medical professions. The study's premise included testing and surveying two groups in the speciality of assistant pharmacists at the Medical College of the Medical University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Each group consisted of twelve students of similar levels in English, ascertained via a diagnostic test at baseline as being lower intermediate A2/ intermediate/B1 according to CEFR. One of the groups served as the control one and the other as the experimental one. The experiment consisted of teaching vocabulary items from a unit in a specialized textbook. The control group was provided with explanations in English only, while the experimental group had the terms and expressions explained in English and translated into Bulgarian. A test and a questionnaire were performed at the end of the experiment. The test, which covered randomly selected terms from the unit, showed that the experimental group faired slightly better than the control one. The questionnaire, given with some variance to both groups, showed that students do prefer to translate the terms and expressions, but also are aware of the fact that not all terminology can be adequately translated, so it cannot supersede entirely definitions and explanations in the foreign language. Therefore, it can be concluded that translation plays a crucial role in the cognitive processes of understanding EAP vocabulary in the target language. The current study corroborates findings by scholars from many countries. As a follow-up, it will be informative to gauge the effectiveness of the use of L1 (the mother tongue) in the explanation of grammar issues in L2 (the foreign language). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study explores the perceptions of English language students regarding the use of the generative AI tool, ChatGPT, as a supportive tool for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) students in a New Zealand university context. Using self-determination theory (SDT) as an explanatory framework, this study explores how ChatGPT impacts students' basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in their language-learning experience. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with 24 postgraduate EAP students and the data are analysed using thematic analysis. The findings suggest that ChatGPT has the potential to support students' needs for autonomy and competence by providing flexibility, personalised feedback and a safe space for practice. However, the impact on relatedness needs is mixed, with some students experiencing a sense of companionship and others expressing concerns about reduced human interaction. While students acknowledge the benefits of ChatGPT, they also emphasise the importance of human-teacher interactivity and empathy. The findings provide theoretical insights and practical recommendations for educators seeking to integrate generative AI tools effectively into language education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to explore the communicative features of teacher talk in English for General Purposes (EGP) vs. English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classes in Iranian contexts based on the Self-Evaluation Teacher Talk (SETT) framework. Design/methodology/approach: For the purposes of this study, EAP and EGP classes run by three language instructors and three content instructors were observed and interviews with teacher participants were conducted. The data were analyzed by content analysis, and emerging overarching themes were recorded. Findings: The findings of this study indicate that the translation of texts into Persian was the dominant theme in classes run by content instructors who were less aware of the communicative features of teacher talk. However, one of the content instructors who was familiar with the communicative features of teacher talk as well as general language instructors were found to be highly aware of the potential of their teacher talk to encourage communication in his classes. The innovative and communicative features in the language/content instructor suggest the importance of teacher agency in bringing change in education at the micro-level. This study has implications for various agencies involved in teaching EAP, EGAP and English for Specific Purposes (ESAP), raising awareness regarding the communicative features of teacher talk as a driving force leading learners and teachers to more communicative opportunities in language classrooms. The findings suggest that teacher talk is an essential component of classroom discourse, shaping students' linguistic and academic development, and that teacher agency is crucial in promoting communicative opportunities in language education. To boost communication, the authors recommend translanguaging with a focus on both communication and optimal use of the mother tongue in EAP classes. Originality/value: There is little empirical evidence on the communicative aspects of teacher talk in higher education. This study can inspire more parallel research on EAP settings in higher education with a focus on communication and teacher talk features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: A chemotherapy‐based mobilization regimen in patients who mobilize poorly, based on etoposide, cytarabine and pegfilgrastim (EAP), has recently been introduced. The aim of this prospective study was to investigate the efficacy and safety of the EAP regimen in patients with poorly mobilizing multiple myeloma (MM) or lymphoma. This single‐arm clinical trial was performed at eight public hospitals in China and was registered as a clinical trial (NCT05510089). The inclusion criteria were; (1) diagnosis of MM or lymphoma, (2) defined as a 'poor mobilizer' and (3) aged 18–75 years. The EAP regimen consisted of etoposide 75 mg/m2/day on days 1–2, cytarabine 300 mg/m2 every 12 h on days 1–2 and pegfilgrastim 6 mg on day 6. The primary endpoint of the study was the ratio of patients achieving adequate mobilization (≥2.0 × 106 CD34+ cells/kg). From 1 September 2022 to 15 August 2023, a total of 58 patients were enrolled, 53 (91.4%) achieved adequate mobilization, while 41 (70.7%) achieved optimal mobilization with a median number of cumulative collected CD34+ cells was 9.2 (range 2.1–92.7) × 106/kg and the median number of apheresis per patient of 1.2. The median time from administration of the EAP regimen to the first apheresis was 12 days. Approximately 8.6% of patients required plerixa for rescue, which was successful. Twelve (20.7%) of the 58 patients suffered grade 2–3 infections, while 25 (43.1%) required platelet transfusions. The duration of neutrophil and platelet engraftment was 11 days. In conclusion, these results suggest that the EAP mobilization regimen might be a promising option for poorly mobilizing patients with MM or lymphoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable research on university undergraduates' struggles to master English for academic purposes (EAP) has been undertaken, yet little attention has been paid to the motivational needs of this specific learner group, or the fulfilment of such needs in university EAP courses. This study examines motivational strategies used by teachers of undergraduate EAP classes, student-perceived ineffective characteristics of the strategies, and students' suggestions for better strategy implementation, together with the relationships between the strategies and the ineffective characteristics/suggestions. Reflective journals were collected from 69 first-year undergraduates who were enrolled in EAP courses offered by a Hong Kong university. The major findings are: 1) The adopted motivational strategies correspond closely to those endorsed in an influential framework; 2) the student participants reported ineffective characteristics pertinent to difficulty, relevance, expected learning outcomes, fairness, and interest; 3) the main suggestions were increased strategy use and provision of more assistance, encouragement, and examples; and 4) most of the suggestions appear to be non-strategy-specific, so they can supposedly be applied to a wide range of motivational strategies. The findings confirm the overall effectiveness of motivational strategies in undergraduate EAP courses, as well as informing university EAP teachers of possible ways to further improve their motivational techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a new first-year EAP course in a Hong Kong university. It utilizes teacher and student reflections to understand the course's strengths and weaknesses, aiming to enhance its design and delivery. The study employed a qualitative approach whereby textual analysis was used to interpret the data collected in the form of written teacher reflections, written student reflections, and notes of teacher reflective dialogue. The thematic categories for coding the data were established based on the course's main learning outcomes: Effective Learning, Spoken Language, and Written Language. Findings reveal that teachers were more critical of the course compared to learners. Teachers expressed dissatisfaction with the pedagogical approach to Effective Learning unit, insufficient time provided in the course to teach solo speaking, and the inability to cover too many organizational and linguistic features in the writing unit. Students, however, did not have much to reflect on about Effective Learning, had mixed views about Spoken Language with some worried about reading from notes, and wrote extremely positively about their learning of Written Language. Nonetheless, their views provide valuable insights for course improvement. Consequently, the paper advocates for a reflective pedagogy approach to EAP that considers both teacher and student reflections to enhance teaching and learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correctional work includes dealing with numerous stressors that compromise mental health. Yet, correctional scholars have dedicated limited attention to assessing the mental health support available to correctional officers at work. Therefore, we explore how officers view mental health programs, especially the Employee Assistant Program (EAP) and the Critical Incident Stress Management Program (CISM). Our findings derive from 44 semi-structured interviews with officers from 15 federal correctional institutions in Canada. Most participants found the mental health programs available at their institutions "helpful." However, they still regretted some of the program's characteristics, providing insights into alterations that can increase the effectiveness of the mental health support provided to prison staff. Such alterations comprise changing the mental health approach within correctional services from reactive to proactive and expanding the availability of professionals specialized in correctional mental health within the existing programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of language instruction is crucial in Canada, given the number of newcomers seeking to improve their English (or French) language skills after arrival. For those who plan to enter post-secondary education but do not meet required language proficiency scores, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programs provide opportunities to strengthen linguistic and academic skills. These inarguably pragmatic goals are often unquestioned, yet EAP instruction is an ideological undertaking with social, economic, and political consequences. This qualitative study investigates language ideologies – rationalizations and justifications for language use and form – through interviews with EAP writing instructors. As participants discussed the material they taught, the language skills students developed, and the consequences of studying EAP writing, ideologies regarding what forms of language should be taught, the purposes of academic writing (instruction), and the social and political dimensions of language were (re)produced and resisted. Formative influences on these ideologies included education, upbringing, and personal language learning experiences. Developing a critical awareness of the understandings of language that inform teaching and learning can make more transparent the linguistic and social discourses that circulate within and beyond EAP writing classrooms and help instructors, students, and other EAP community members (re)produce or resist them strategically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internationalisation of higher education presents an increasingly urgent need to explore how universities can become more welcoming places for all students. Top-down implementation of widening participation and the inclusion of a more diverse and less prepared student population in higher education have led to social and academic exclusion, with systems failing to accommodate this change to support the less prepared intakes. Academic and social/cultural drivers are the key areas for bottom-up implementation of internationalisation strategies to support this influx and change in student profile. However, institutionalised separation of home and international students for academic support and language development provision, and separation of this support from subject disciplines, have increased the obstacles that block inclusive practice. An internationalised campus involves both top-down institutionalised intervention and bottom-up intervention of the academic self, enabling the potential for intercultural construction within and between communities, and promoting agency of the self in connection with others to enact change. Viewing university campuses as intercultural spaces that all students and staff need to navigate and inhabit has implications that this article explores through the lens of social justice and from the bottom-up perspective of language development provision, within the field of English for Academic Purposes, in an arts-based university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background and Objectives: Although Machine Translation (MT) is extensively researched within the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and translation studies, few studies have attempted to implement MT output in foreign language teaching (FLT). One potential aspect of using MT in FLT refers to the implementation of MT output for reading comprehension. Considering the existing gap in the body of research on this issue, the present study aimed to investigate whether MT output is qualified enough to be used as an aid in EAP reading comprehension courses. More specifically, this study intended to benchmark the efficacy of MT output for EAP reading comprehension courses based on the data obtained from testing its comprehensibility and probing the students' perceptions. To achieve the objectives of the study, MT was operationally defined as quality assessment in terms of output efficacy, a combination of usability and comprehensibility, which mirrors the ultimate goal of MT use in EAP reading comprehension courses, from the users' or target readers' standpoint. Within this perspective, the current research was an attempt to assess the quality of MT output in terms of comprehensibility and the degree to which MT output might be comprehensible to the EAP students participating in this study. Materials and Methods: The participants of the study, 140 Iranian undergraduate university students majoring in the field of education at Farhangian University, Iran, were selected based on simple random sampling. Oxford Quick Placement Test was used to homogenize them in terms of English proficiency. Two versions of a reliable reading comprehension test, human translation (HT) and Machine Translation (MT), were given to. This test included 25 multiple-choice items, assessing the participants' literal comprehension of information stated in the passage as well as higher-order comprehension that required making inferences and conclusions. In particular, the items measured textual coherence, inference, reference, scanning, skimming, and word-meaning inference. To test the reliability of the tests, the KR21 formula was applied and the results showed that both HT test (.83) and MT test (.78) were reliable. To investigate the perceptions of the participants on the efficacy of the MT output they encountered on the test, semi-structured interviews were conducted with some of the participants in Persian. Findings: With reference to the results of non-parametric tests such as Spearman's rho, and MannWhitney Tests, and considering the observed effect sizes (Cohen's d), it was revealed that, generally, the efficacy of MT output is comparable to that of HT. Moreover, in terms of reading comprehension subskills, the qualities of the two translations were comparable with regard to scanning, and inference, but not skimming and reference. Furthermore, the findings from the interview indicated that the students perceive MT to be a seminal aid for their EAP reading comprehension activities despite the minor problems that exist in the output such as morpho-syntactic errors or inappropriate lexical equivalents. Conclusions: The present study confirmed the fact that the efficacy of MT output is target-readerdependent and text-dependent since it is determined both by the characteristics of the readers, such as their disciplines, and text features, as demonstrated by the significant differences in comprehension levels of the same readers measured by the same questions for HT and MT output. Accordingly, this study shed limelight on comprehensibility as a criterion of MT output efficacy; that is to say, it has to be reminded that MT quality needs to be defined as a context-bound and target-reader-specific concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regular language instruction informed by needs assessment has been a widespread phenomenon in Teaching English as a Foreign language (EFL). In higher education (HE) institutions teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP) based on research has also been a widely accepted trend. Nowadays the increasing number of international students in the Hungarian HE scenario has prompted faculties to support the development of students' language skills systematically. As one such institution, the Centre for Modern Languages (CML) at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) designed a questionnaire survey systematically to research the language needs of its international students of technology after having come across some anecdotal mismatches across faculties in the perception of the students' level of knowledge. International students of technology, their EFL teachers and their subject matter instructors were surveyed on how important they think certain language skills are for the students to succeed in the academic scenario. The results show that skills such as identifying main points in texts, summarising information in speech and in writing, or asking for clarification - all of pertain to the recognition or formation of structural elements in written and spoken texts - are seen as most important by the stakeholders. The results now inform the refreshment of course design and materials development at CML. Limitations are discussed together with future research recommendations, such as the need to thoroughly investigate non-linguistic issues influencing learning achievements, which may include cultural differences in learning strategies or learner-teacher expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sheds light on the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) principles, to diagnose Doctoral students’ difficulties, and to underline the possibility of adopting the CALLA model to monitor and enhance Doctoral students’ academic writing. The study’s main objectives are to spotlight on the cognitive strategies students need to use on the one hand and suggest the application of the model’s modules, namely the appropriate learning strategies, development of academic language and a related curriculum to their specialty and research field on the other hand. To reach these objectives, a mixed qualitative and quantitative research design is selected. Preliminary results showed that the CALLA model’s phases were partly used by a wide range of students. Additionally, to promote their academic and scientific writing skills, content-based instruction can be adjusted using this model. Résumé Cet article met en lumière les principes de l'approche cognitive de l'apprentissage du langage académique (CALLA) dans l’optique de diagnostiquer les difficultés des doctorants et souligner la possibilité d'adopter le modèle CALLA pour suivre et développer l'écriture académique des doctorants. Les principaux objectifs de l'étude sont, d'une part, de mettre en lumière les stratégies cognitives que les étudiants doivent utiliser et, d'autre part, de suggérer l'application des modules du modèle, à savoir les stratégies d'apprentissage appropriées, le développement du langage académique et un programme d'études lié à leur spécialité et à leur domaine de recherche. Pour atteindre ces objectifs, un modèle de recherche mixte, qualitatif et quantitatif, est sélectionné. Les résultats préliminaires ont montré que les phases du modèle CALLA sont partiellement utilisées par un large éventail d'étudiants. En revanche, pour développer leurs compétences en rédaction académique et scientifique, l'enseignement basé sur le contenu peut être adapté à l'aide de ce modèle.

This study explored the effectiveness of mobile-assisted vocabulary learning through digital flashcards on receptive and productive aspects of academic vocabulary knowledge among Iranian EFL university students. In a quasi-experimental design, 86 participants were divided into three groups: a digital flashcard group (DFs), a traditional paper flashcard (PFs) group, and a control group using word lists, to assess the impact of these methods on vocabulary acquisition over five weeks. The findings revealed that students utilizing DFs exhibited significant improvements in both receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge compared to those using PFs and the control method. Notably, the increase in receptive vocabulary was more substantial than in productive vocabulary, highlighting the differential effects of DFs on various aspects of vocabulary learning. This finding underscores the need for targeted strategies to enhance productive aspects of academic vocabulary specifically. The study supports the integration of DFs into English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programs to leverage their potential in boosting vocabulary acquisition effectively. However, the lesser gains in productive vocabulary suggest the necessity for complementary instructional methods, which focus on more active vocabulary learning tasks. Based on these findings, the study argues that mobile-assisted vocabulary learning should be considered a practical strategy for supporting academic vocabulary development among university students.

Research in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has increased in in terms of teaching and learning forms, methods and materials over the past decades. The globalisation of knowledge sharing and communication within the academic community, and the inclusion of marginalised higher education and research institutions, has resulted in an ongoing evolution of many terms related to EAP. Nevertheless, underexplored areas of EAP research and practice remain, including that of “academic style”, a necessary integration of EAP and academic writing teaching and practice. The study then presents a pilot study consisting in the detailed qualitative analysis of a collection of abstracts from a PhD seminar on academic style (self)proofreading. By employing a methodological framework uniting stylistics, error analysis, and the categorisation of specific areas of interest, the pilot study highlights relevant stylistic errors in academic writing and draws conclusions on the requirements and implications of introducing academic style to EAP.

This study argues for the use of English travel narratives and their interlingual translations as vehicles to foster intercultural sensitivity and language awareness in the EAP classroom. Both travel writing and interlingual translation have been, in fact, successfully used in academic environments as shown by an increasing scholarly interest over the past decades. Moreover, the relationship between travel and language can be explored, in Cronin’s words, “in the context of a nomadic theory of translation” where “the translating agent like the traveller straddles the borderline between the cultures” (Cronin, 2000, p. 2). In light of these considerations, this study performs a comparative analysis of Daphne Phelps’s British travel narrative A House in Sicily (1999) and its Italian translation Una casa in Sicilia (2001) to show how travel writing (also in translation) may be an excellent opportunity for a reappraisal of what literature may have to offer in the EAP context.

Background and Objectives: Although Machine Translation (MT) is extensively researched within the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and translation studies, few studies have attempted to implement MT output in foreign language teaching (FLT). One potential aspect of using MT in FLT refers to the implementation of MT output for reading comprehension. Considering the existing gap in the body of research on this issue, the present study aimed to investigate whether MT output is qualified enough to be used as an aid in EAP reading comprehension courses. More specifically, this study intended to benchmark the efficacy of MT output for EAP reading comprehension courses based on the data obtained from testing its comprehensibility and probing the students’ perceptions. To achieve the objectives of the study, MT was operationally defined as quality assessment in terms of output efficacy, a combination of usability and comprehensibility, which mirrors the ultimate goal of MT use in EAP reading comprehension courses, from the users' or target readers’ standpoint. Within this perspective, the current research was an attempt to assess the quality of MT output in terms of comprehensibility and the degree to which MT output might be comprehensible to the EAP students participating in this study.Materials and Methods: The participants of the study, 140 Iranian undergraduate university students majoring in the field of education at Farhangian University, Iran, were selected based on simple random sampling. Oxford Quick Placement Test was used to homogenize them in terms of English proficiency. Two versions of a reliable reading comprehension test, human translation (HT) and Machine Translation (MT), were given to. This test included 25 multiple-choice items, assessing the participants' literal comprehension of information stated in the passage as well as higher-order comprehension that required making inferences and conclusions. In particular, the items measured textual coherence, inference, reference, scanning, skimming, and word-meaning inference. To test the reliability of the tests, the KR-21 formula was applied and the results showed that both HT test (.83) and MT test (.78) were reliable. To investigate the perceptions of the participants on the efficacy of the MT output they encountered on the test, semi-structured interviews were conducted with some of the participants in Persian. Findings: With reference to the results of non-parametric tests such as Spearman’s rho, and Mann-Whitney Tests, and considering the observed effect sizes (Cohen’s d), it was revealed that, generally, the efficacy of MT output is comparable to that of HT. Moreover, in terms of reading comprehension sub-skills, the qualities of the two translations were comparable with regard to scanning, and inference, but not skimming and reference. Furthermore, the findings from the interview indicated that the students perceive MT to be a seminal aid for their EAP reading comprehension activities despite the minor problems that exist in the output such as morpho-syntactic errors or inappropriate lexical equivalents.Conclusions: The present study confirmed the fact that the efficacy of MT output is target-reader-dependent and text-dependent since it is determined both by the characteristics of the readers, such as their disciplines, and text features, as demonstrated by the significant differences in comprehension levels of the same readers measured by the same questions for HT and MT output. Accordingly, this study shed limelight on comprehensibility as a criterion of MT output efficacy; that is to say, it has to be reminded that MT quality needs to be defined as a context-bound and target-reader-specific concept.

This qualitative study explores the perceptions of English language students regarding the use of the generative AI tool, ChatGPT, as a supportive tool for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) students in a New Zealand university context. Using self-determination theory (SDT) as an explanatory framework, this study explores how ChatGPT impacts students’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in their language-learning experience. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with 24 postgraduate EAP students and the data are analysed using thematic analysis. The findings suggest that ChatGPT has the potential to support students’ needs for autonomy and competence by providing flexibility, personalised feedback and a safe space for practice. However, the impact on relatedness needs is mixed, with some students experiencing a sense of companionship and others expressing concerns about reduced human interaction. While students acknowledge the benefits of ChatGPT, they also emphasise the importance of human-teacher interactivity and empathy. The findings provide theoretical insights and practical recommendations for educators seeking to integrate generative AI tools effectively into language education.

International academic contexts where English is used as a lingua franca (ELF) have become ubiquitous. ELF lectures have been studied from a number of perspectives, but they have not been lexically profiled. We depart from the assumption that the lexical profile of academic lectures delivered in international settings may differ from that of lectures delivered in Anglophone contexts, and that these differences have pedagogical implications for the teaching and learning of academic English from an ELF-perspective. We lexically profile a corpus of fifty university lectures delivered in English in five European countries and compare them against sixty-two lectures delivered in English in the U.S. We find that 3,000 words are needed for good listening comprehension in both sets of lectures, while ideal comprehension is reached at 11,000 words for international and 7,000 words for U.S. lectures, which suggests differences between the two in terms of variation in low-frequency vocabulary. Some function words are much more frequent in international than in U.S. lectures. International lectures also feature less high-frequency and more midfrequency academic vocabulary than U.S. lectures. These differences mostly reflect the use of ELF-specific communicative strategies in international lectures. Focusing on them and potentially making academic ELF-specific word lists may ensure the more efficient teaching of academic English from an ELF-perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Аcademic writing is a specific type of non-fiction used by scholars within an academic context. Notwithstanding the different types of academic writing genre forms, the major characteristics of academic writing are generally the same as they include a well-defined, recognizable structure in the IMRD (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion) format. An essential feature of this type of writing is a formal register free from colloquialisms. In terms of its factual perspective, academic writing is typically centered on its objective, which is often experimental evidence, entailing a clear focus on the research question under study. Profound knowledge of the research article structure, language, and intrinsic features may be conducive to a successful career in the fields of medicine and healthcare. The current paper attempts to investigate writing for academic purposes genre via an analysis of an elective course for bachelor students of healthcare professions in their third and final year of study. Held in 2021/2022 academic year, it was the first of its kind at the Medical College at the Medical University in Plovdiv. The undergraduate students who chose to participate in this course were from the specialties of assistantpharmacist, dietitian, dental technician, rehabilitator, medical laboratory technician and radiographer. They all shared the same background in EAP, studying it in their first year at college. The academic writing elective course was centered, although not exclusively, on learning to write medical research articles (MRA). The course syllabus encompassed issues such as structure and organisation of MRA, rhetorical moves, usage of language and more specifically knowledge of formal register, hedging strategies, proper word order, editing and revision techniques, publication process. The study tried to gauge students’ expectations and performances at base and at end of course. For that purpose, two five-point Likert-type of questionnaires were conducted. The first one tested the students’ awareness of the main tenets of MRA writing, while the second aimed at ascertaining the level of course success rate. The study also conducted an initial assessment test and an analysis of the students’ performances, as they were required to write an article as their final assignment. The results from the initial diagnostic test showed that all enlisted students were eligible for the course, as there was no one scoring below seventy percent on the test. The course may be considered a success, judging only by its statistics. To delve deeper than that, it must be said that most students were only satisfactorily efficient in terms of the preset criteria. The study shows that the course did seem informative as well as skill-worthy, as the students made a significant progress in the difficult field of scientific writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many English language teaching contexts, listening activities resemble listening comprehension tests. Scholars have argued that this product-oriented approach is not particularly effective in helping learners improve their listening skills and have advocated for the inclusion of instruction that targets specific features of spoken language. The current study tested these claims in the context of an English-for-academic-purposes (EAP) listening and speaking course. Sixty-four post-secondary learners of English were randomly assigned to one of two groups. In addition to their regularly scheduled listening activities, one group received 100 minutes of instruction for two prosodic features (paratone and prosodic phrasing), while the other group received an equal amount of product-oriented listening instruction. After the instructional treatment, learners in the prosody group outperformed those in the product-oriented group on comprehension of the target prosodic features, and on general listening proficiency tests. It is argued that short periods of instruction targeting prosodic features can improve the effectiveness of traditional product-oriented EAP listening instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed a heightening of interest in the role of teachers working in EAP (English for Academic Purposes), particularly with regard to defining and debating their professional identity. However, it must be said that most authors have painted a rather dismal picture, when comparing the status and professional standing of English language teachers in Higher Education with that of academics working in other disciplines. Drawing on concepts and models developed by the educational sociologists Basil Bernstein and Pierre Bourdieu, this reflective paper proposes a theoretical framework to account for why these differences in status might be so. The paper concludes that EAP as an academic discipline currently faces some significant threats. However, the paper also argues that if EAP practitioners are to gain the professional recognition they desire, then they themselves must strive to trade more explicitly on the forms of capital valued by the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the global spread of English as the lingua franca for academic publishing, non -native researchers and university students are constantly facing linguistic barriers including insufficient vocabulary knowledge in writing for publication. This persistent need motivated the development of a good number of corpus -based word lists for frequently used academic and technical words in research articles across disciplines. Nevertheless, despite its importance in corpus -based study of language for word list development, replication research has received far less attention in this line of inquiry. The current study aimed to address this gap and replicated two published studies that investigated the use of academic vocabulary in applied linguistics research articles. To this end, research articles published from 2010 to 2020 in 20 well -known journals in the field were collected, and a corpus with around 48 million words was compiled and analyzed. The findings indicated that academic vocabulary accounted for 11.46% of the corpus, which is similar and close to the reported coverage of the AWL in replicated studies. However, regarding the frequently occurring academic and non -academic content words, the findings showed considerable variation with respect to the results reported earlier. In light of these findings, the study highlighted the importance of replication research to test the reliability of corpus -based vocabulary studies that developed field -specific academic word lists. Finally, the study developed an updated version for applied linguistics academic word list, that might be regarded as a resource and guide for the vocabulary learning component of the relevant EAP programs in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document discusses the categorization of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) learners in the Algerian context and considerations for course designers. The four main categories of ESP learners identified are: ESP as a university course for EFL undergraduates and postgraduates, ESP for academic purposes, ESP for occupational/vocational purposes, and ESP as a medium of instruction (EMI). The focus of this document is on EMI, which refers to using English as the primary medium of instruction in educational institutions where the learner's first language is not English. The document suggests that Algerian EMI course practitioners can study best practices from other universities that have been implementing EMI since the 1990s. The Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach is highlighted as a prominent model for EMI teacher training and course design. The document emphasizes the importance of needs analysis, ongoing professional development, and the integration of formative assessment in ESP course design. It concludes by suggesting the development of interdisciplinary collaboration, the integration of ICTs and digital skills, and the creation of national platforms for the exchange of course materials and teaching aids in ESP. [Extracted from the article]

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) provide rich academic content to learners around the world. However, understanding such content is challenging to second-language learners. Given the importance of vocabulary knowledge to comprehension, this study constructed a 10.2-million-word corpus of MOOCs from four disciplinary areas (engineering, humanities and arts, science and math, and social sciences), and examined (a) the lexical demands of MOOCs, (b) the coverage of general and discipline-specific academic vocabulary lists in MOOCs, and (c) the extent to which these lists helped learners with MOOCs' lexical demands. The results show that – together with proper nouns, marginal words, transparent compounds, and acronyms – the most frequent 3,000 and 4,000 word families of general English respectively provide 90% and 95% coverage of the corpus, indicating that MOOCs are as lexically challenging as university lectures. Also, because both general and discipline-specific academic vocabulary lists provide high coverage of MOOCs, studying them can lower students' learning burdens and help them achieve higher coverage of MOOCs than learning words by frequency. Lastly, based on learners' existing vocabulary knowledge and target disciplines, this study provides pedagogical recommendations to teachers on how to employ general and discipline-specific academic word lists as vocabulary support for EAP students. • This study constructs a 10-million-word corpus of MOOCs from four disciplinary areas. • MOOCs are found to be lexically as challenging as university lectures and seminars. • General and discipline-specific academic word lists have high coverage over MOOCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internationalisation of higher education presents an increasingly urgent need to explore how universities can become more welcoming places for all students. Top-down implementation of widening participation and the inclusion of a more diverse and less prepared student population in higher education have led to social and academic exclusion, with systems failing to accommodate this change to support the less prepared intakes. Academic and social/cultural drivers are the key areas for bottom-up implementation of internationalisation strategies to support this influx and change in student profile. However, institutionalised separation of home and international students for academic support and language development provision, and separation of this support from subject disciplines, have increased the obstacles that block inclusive practice. An internationalised campus involves both top-down institutionalised intervention and bottom-up intervention of the academic self, enabling the potential for intercultural construction within and between communities, and promoting agency of the self in connection with others to enact change. Viewing university campuses as intercultural spaces that all students and staff need to navigate and inhabit has implications that this article explores through the lens of social justice and from the bottom-up perspective of language development provision, within the field of English for Academic Purposes, in an arts-based university.

Academic discourse is complex and dense regarding the information it conveys by nature. This complexity requires more effective ways of communication, which is possible by utilizing different modes of meaning–in other words, multimodality. English for Academic Purposes (EAP) aims to prepare learners for the academic discourse that they will be exposed to during their studies. Accordingly, multimodality has become one of the skills learners require to develop during their EAP experiences. This study attempts to reveal how much multimodality is included in EAP objectives and practices. For that purpose, target skills defined for academic English by the Global Scale of English (GSE) (Pearson, 2019) are analyzed to study the multimodal aspect of objectives. For the practice aspect, the tasks in two EAP course books are analyzed using a qualitative approach. The results of the analyses revealed that the use of multiple modes is set as an objective skill for EAP learners within the descriptors of GSE, especially for academic speaking, and this expectation is reflected within the tasks designed in EAP coursebooks. These findings are in agreement with the assumption that multimodality is considered a necessity for academic contexts and, therefore, EAP.

While the success of language instruction is unquestionably reflected in students’ performance in communicating in the target language, their voices generally can best express their success, disappointment, or complacency worth to reflect. This article, based on the study held at Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta in 2021, reports on a mixed-methods investigation that examines how an initial teacher educator (ITE) manages a course in English for academic purposes (EAP) from students’ perspectives. Fifty-five sociology education students selected through convenience sampling participated in a quantitative survey and focus group discussion. The quantitative data analysis shows students' positive views regarding the initial teacher educator's general performance, delivery, time management, material, media, assessment, and care. To complement the quantitative findings, the qualitative data scrutinized through thematic analysis suggest three imperative measures for more effective EAP instruction. Even though students rated ITEs performance as "Very Good" and her pedagogical competencies as "Very High," some qualitative data reveal the students' empirical voices that at least several adjustments must be made by acting on three imperative measures. This study provides insights into the self-study design for ITEs on upscaling their TPACK, professional commitments, and pedagogical identity.

Abstract Background Oral case presentations – structured verbal reports of clinical cases – are fundamental to patient care and learner education. Despite their continued importance in a modernized medical landscape, their structure has remained largely unchanged since the 1960s, based on the traditional Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan (SOAP) format developed for medical records. We developed a problem-based alternative known as Events, Assessment, Plan (EAP) to understand the perceived efficacy of EAP compared to SOAP among learners. Methods We surveyed (Qualtrics, via email) all third- and fourth-year medical students and internal medicine residents at a large, academic, tertiary care hospital and associated Veterans Affairs medical center. The primary outcome was trainee preference in oral case presentation format. The secondary outcome was comparing EAP and SOAP on 10 functionality domains assessed via a 5-point Likert scale. We used descriptive statistics (proportion and mean) to describe the results. Results The response rate was 21% (118/563). Of the 59 respondents with exposure to both the EAP and SOAP formats, 69% (n = 41) preferred the EAP format as compared to 19% (n = 11) who preferred SOAP (p

English Medium Instruction (EMI) has spread far and wide in recent years, becoming a prominent feature of higher education globally. One area of research is devoted to exploring how students cope with the transition to EMI university programmes. The present study traces the academic literacy challenges of 40 1st year EMI social science students during their initial 14-week academic writing preparatory course at a university in Japan. A mixed-methods approach was used to chart changes in student perceptions of academic literacy challenges via questionnaires, interviews, and written journals. No significant change was discernible in student perceptions of academic writing difficultiesover the semester. However, different patterns of fluctuation for different groups of students were evident, with beliefs about the challenges of developing academic literacy strengthening and weakening over the semester. Qualitative content analysis revealed that the transition towards academic literacy was a demanding one. Students felt unprepared for the demands of academic writing, given the high-stakes exam focus of high school English curricula in Japan. The study underlines the importance of EMI support provision focused on discipline-specific language and academic literacy development.

For rubber-like materials, there are three popular methods of equibiaxial tension available: inflation tension, equibiaxial planar tension, and radial tension. However, no studies have addressed the accuracy and comparability of these tests. In this work, we model the tension tests for a hyperelastic electroactive polymer (EAP) membrane material using finite element method (FEM) and investigate their experimental accuracy. This study also analyzes the impact of apparatus structure parameters and specimen dimensions on experimental performances. Additionally, a tensile efficiency is proposed to assess non-uniform deformation in equibiaxial planar tension and radial tension tests. The sample points for calculating deformation in inflation tensions should be taken near the top of the inflated balloon to obtain a more accurate characteristic curve; the deformation simulation range will be constrained by the material model and its parameters within a specific limit (λ ≈ 1.9); if the inflation hole size is halved, the required air pressure must be doubled to maintain equivalent stress and strain values, resulting in a reduction in half in inflation height and decreased accuracy. The equibiaxial planar tension test can enhance uniform deformation and reduce stress errors to as low as 2.1% (at λ = 4) with single-corner-point tension. For circular diaphragm specimens in radial tension tests, increasing the number of cuts and using larger punched holes results in more uniform deformation and less stress error, with a minimum value of 3.83% achieved for a specimen with 24 cuts and a 5 mm punched hole. In terms of tensile efficiency, increasing the number of tensile points in the equibiaxial planar tension test can improve it; under radial tension, increasing the number of cuts and decreasing the diameter of the punched hole on the specimen has a hedging effect. The findings of this study are valuable for accurately evaluating various equibiaxial tension methods and analyzing their precision, as well as providing sound guidance for the effective design of testing apparatus and test plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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English-medium instruction (EMI) is taking hold within higher education in non-Anglophone settings, but there is insufficient research into the challenges students encounter when taking EMI courses online. This exploratory quantitative study conducted in Hong Kong examines the language and studying challenges faced by undergraduate students when in-person classes were suspended due to COVID-19. One hundred thirteen first- and second-year students completed a questionnaire, rating their perceived challenges in the areas of writing, speaking, reading, listening, and study skills. The results showed that they faced particular challenges with reading and study skills (especially self-motivation), as well as vocabulary range, which affected more than one skill. Corroborating existing research, students with less secondary school EMI experience reported greater challenges. As providing English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses is a primary way to support the language skills of students in EMI settings, we offer guidance to EAP practitioners who seek to help their students overcome the challenges identified in this article. As online technology continues to deliver content in tertiary education, EAP courses must be closely aligned with the language and study skills needs of students in digital EMI environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discourse of deficiency in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has been perpetuated through the neoliberalisation of higher education. To explore the possibilities of disrupting this discourse, an EAP instructor, Daron, engaged with his critical friend, Jariya, in dialogic reflection. This was done on Daron's teaching journal entries through the restorying of his reflections, which were then critically responded to, and finally reconstructed to highlight tensions and hegemonic discourses affecting EAP. This dialogic exercise showed disruption through the reimagination of the EAP marketplace and through the centring of self and anxiety in a neoliberalised parameter. The former demonstrated a critique towards the value of standardised assessments while the latter illustrated the seemingly isolating endeavour when contesting the notion of students' language deficiency. While tensions were not expected to be resolved, this study showed how EAP practitioners could still enact autonomy within their work parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]