Negotiating language and content in
our EAP materials: three practitioner
views
Clare Carr, Terri Edwards and Michelle Joubert
Durham University English Language Centre
Introduction
T
Context (1)
Michelle
Terri
Clare
Time at
Durham
c.2yrs
c.10yrs
c.9yrs
EFL teaching
qualifications
MA TESOL
CELTA
RSA DipTEFLA
MA TESOL& Applied
Linguistics
DELTA (& CELTA)
∂
Other PG/
UG-level study
MA English
Literature
MA Ancient &
Modern History
MA Classical Studies
EdD (ongoing)
MA Music with
Education Studies
PGCE (Primary)
DipPsych
(Psychology)
Teaching
experience
prior to
Durham (EAP)
Junior Lecturer
Research Assistant
(2yrs), South Africa;
TESOL (8yrs) South
Africa and US
TEFL/ESP
(20yrs), mostly
Germany and Japan
Primary Education
(5yrs), North East
England, UK
Context (2) Durham English
Language Centre (ELC)
• Not attached to a particular department (although we do run
some collaborative courses)
• Academic Language and Literacy courses
∂
• Varying class sizes: up to 3-200(+)! students
• Mostly international - an increasing number of home
students
• Mostly mixed-disciplinary
Context (3) Durham English
Language Centre (ELC)
• Non-compulsory, in-sessional, non-credit bearing (voluntary)
evening classes
∂
• Mostly writing-focused
• Mostly 1-3 session courses, some longer
Context (3): English for Law
Focus
Materials
Lesson 1
Linguistic features of law-writing
Lesson 2
Structure: problem-solution frame
Lesson 3
Introductions and conclusions and
referencing
• PowerPoint slides
• (At least) one
accompanying
handout for each
∂
• Non-compulsory course taught within the ELC, informed by
discussion with Law Department academics and students
(established 2008)
• Good sign-up and retention
• Previously a longer course (5 sessions) with longer sessions (120
mins each, now 90 mins)
All agreed: it needed ‘freshening up’
Aim of our presentation: our hypothesis
Teachers’
• background
• academic study
• experience
∂
would affect approaches to the weighting of
language and content in materials development
Method
T
Our mission…
• To each separately analyse existing materials for an
ESAP course: English for Law (specifically, lesson 3
of 3)
• To create a reflective record of thoughts/processes in
∂
materials development – thinking
of language and
content
• To share reflections about how we would teach it
This would help us to make explicit our views on
the balance between language and content
Results and Discussion
T
Immediate responses
Michelle
Terri
Clare
How to encourage
student criticality/
independent
engagement with
language and content
– exploratory
approach.
How to create studentcentred tasks, with an
appropriate level of
challenge
How to create a clear
pathway through the
ideas, with logical
content and linked to
appropriate content
and language-related
objectives for the
students.
(English literature
background?)
(TEFL background?)
(Education
background?)
∂
We all had different initial reactions…
However, although we all had different
initial reactions, we realised that we
were essentially doing the same
things…
∂
We separated our findings into
(1) EAP content-related discussion
(2) Law content-related
discussion
∂
Reflections (1): Session ‘EAP’
content-related discussion
T
• The number of learning objectives for each session needs to be
reduced in order to create a more cohesive journey through the materials
• Milk the text – students are doing too much reading for too few outcomes
e.g. focus the three lessons on one essay
• Authentic tasks and texts lead to∂authentic language use should be
used throughout (NB increased reading burden – accessible topics)
• Language needs to be more integrated (e.g. ‘it’ phrases): separation
makes language seem peripheral
Even where content is subject-specific, there are some teachable
transferable skills (e.g. the ability to unpack the structure and mine the
language of a text)
English for Law Overview
Focus
Lesson 1 Linguistic features of lawwriting
Lesson 2 Structure: problem-solution
∂
frame
Lesson 3 Introductions and
conclusions and referencing
Materials
• PowerPoint
slides
• (At least) one
accompanying
handout for
each
Reflections (2): Text and ‘Law’
content-related discussion
• As non-subject specialists within an EGAP or even ESAP programme,
“we aren’t teaching them law”, “we can’t teach them law” or ever fully
join the law community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991)
• There were some aspects of law that we knew about from reading and
∂ – close relationship to Law
talking to academics and students
Department e.g.
(i) OSCOLA rather than Harvard (authenticity)
(ii) the referencing element of Lesson 3 could be moved into Lesson 1
(to foreground the use of sources to make recommendations)
English for Law Overview
Focus
Lesson 1 Linguistic features of lawwriting
Lesson 2 Structure: problem-solution
∂
frame
Lesson 3 Introductions and
conclusions and referencing
Materials
• PowerPoint
slides
• (At least) one
accompanying
handout for
each
EA P
∂
Content and meaning are the drivers of both structure and
language choices.
We need to use the knowledge we have of ‘P’ (purpose) to direct
our co-construction of ‘A’ (academic) with the students and teach ‘E’
(English language) within the TASK + CONTENT framework.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Back to our hypothesis…
Our previous background/academic study/experience
affected our initial reactions
BUT:
• We agreed far more than we∂ disagreed – shared identity
as part of an EAP community of practice
• Wider issues of agency, power relations, identity,
expertise, positioning of EAP practitioner within the
university, department titles, occluded genres – all things
we can’t easily solve alone – filter down to affect lesson
planning
So, what does this tell us about our unified
approach to balancing language and content?
Turner (2004)…. “in the context of performance in academic
discourse…language form as well as language as used in a particular
theoretical discourse or equally important“
• Language and content are inseparable – it’s about integrating the
teaching of language and content ∂even though as EAP professionals we
may be unfamiliar with discipline content
• We can and must use our shared identity as EAP practitioners to inform
the EAP content of our ESAP teaching
• As a by-product, we can increase both our profile and status in the
university by championing our linguistic expertise and its applicability
and usefulness to students of all disciplines.
Implications and Recommendations
T
• Collaborative planning and sharing of resources/expertise is to be
encouraged
• EAP practitioners should consider developing expertise in the writing
practices of particular disciplines BUT needn’t be content experts
• Wider ethnography (as in ESP) may be helpful – triangulation of
product and process: texts, lecturer
∂ feedback, faculty and students as
far as possible and us as teachers
• As a department at Durham we are seeking ways to inform our
practice with theory, expanding EAP content knowledge by integrating
theory from, e.g. Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, passim)
and Academic Literacies (Lillis & Scott, 2007), ESAP and genre
analysis (Hyland, 2002; Nesi & Gardner, 2012): the TEAP reading
group
T
TEAP reading group
Hood, S. (2008). Summary writing in academic contexts: implicating
meaning in processes of change. Linguistics and Education 19, 351365.
Macnaught, L., Maton, K., Martin, J.R.,
∂ and Matruglio, E. (2013). Jointly
constructing semantic waves: implications for teacher training.
Linguistics and Education 24, 50-63.
Turner, J. (2004). Language as academic purpose. Journal of English for
Academic Purposes. 3, 95-109.
References
Hyland, K. (2002). Specificity revisited: how far should we go now? English for Specific
Purposes, 21(4) 385-395.
Lave, J. and Wenger E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lea, M. R. and Street, B. V. (1998). Student Writing in Higher Education: an academic literacies
approach. Studies in Higher Education 23(2), 157-172.
Lea, M. R. and Street, B. V. (2006). The “Academic Literacies” Model: Theory and Application.
Theory into Practice. 45(4), 368-377.
∂
Lillis, T. and Scott, M. (2007). Defining academic literacies research: issues of epistemology,
ideology and strategy. Journal of Applied Linguistics. 4(1) 5-32.
Nesi, H. and Gardner, S. (2012). Genres Across The Disciplines. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Stoller, F. L., Horn, B., Grabe, W. and Robinson, M. S.(2006). Evaluative review in materials
development. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5 174-192.
Thank you for listening.
Questions/Comments?
Clare Carr c.c.barker@durham.ac.uk
Terri Edwards terri.edwards@durham.ac.uk
Michelle Joubert michelle.joubert@durham.ac.uk
Durham University English Language Centre