In-sessional EAP impact: a longitudinal emic perspective 

This project seeks to explore, from an emic perspective, the perceived impact of in-sessional EAP provision at the UoL. This will be done amidst observations that we cannot assume that the skills learnt in the EAP course are applicable and/or beneficial in the discursive literacy exigencies of the disciplines (see Spack, 1997). Thus, this project will explore the ‘portability’ of the literacy resources the EAP course imparts to students (cf. Artemeva, 2009) and how these resources help students to become “socioliterate” (Johns, 1997); to become ethnographers of their disciplines.

In order to get a rich/nuanced understanding of this perceived impact, the project will be ethnographically inspired (Flowerdew, 2002). Student participants will be purposively selected. These students’ participation in the literacy demands of their disciplines will be observed, their literacy artefacts analysed, and their views on the transferability of ‘skills’ learnt in the EAP course to disciplinary tasks established through depth interviews. Even though some question student ability to evaluate (EAP) programmes as they supposedly do not have the requisite know-how to do so (Crosthwaite, 2016 cited in Pearson, 2020), this project proceeds on the view that student voice can nonetheless be an important tool to understanding EAP impact albeit in an indirect way (Gaffas, 2019; Pearson, 2020). To further understand the “transfer climate” within disciplines at the institution (James, 2010), the researcher will also interview content faculty to get their views on how they perceive and facilitate the application of the portable resources brought along by their students. The resulting data will be transcribed and coded iteratively for themes. These themes will offer insight into the portability of the resources picked up in in-sessional classes and therefore the impact of EAP provision. The project will be carried out over one academic year as it seeks to focus on how students assess their ability to learn how to learn as the researcher follows them closely gathering various types of data from their interactions with various facets of the academy over a period of time (Zappa-Hollman, 2018). 

References  

Artemeva, N. (2009). Stories of becoming: a study of novice engineers learning genres of their profession. In C. Bazerman, A. Bonini, & D. Figuerido (eds.), Genre in a changing world (pp. 158-178). The WAC Clearing House. 

Flowerdew, J. (2002). Ethnographically inspired approaches to the study of academic discourse. In J. Flowerdew (ed.), Academic discourse (pp. 235-252). Routledge.  

Gaffas, Z. M. (2019). Students’ perception of the impact of EGP and ESP courses on their English language development: Voices from Saudi Arabia. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 42, 1-13.  

Johns, A. M. (1997). Text, role and context: developing academic literacies. Cambridge University Press.  

Pearson, W. S. (2020). The effectiveness of pre-sessional EAP programmes in UK higher education: A review of the evidence. Review of Education, 8(2), 420-447. 

Spack, R. (1997). The acquisition of academic literacy in a second language: A longitudinal case study. Written Communication, 14(1), 3-62.  

Zappa-Hollman, S. (2018). Collaborations between language and content university instructors: factors and indicators of positive partnerships. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(5), 591-606.  https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2018.1491946