Project Skills: the perfect
balance?
Kerith + Georgie
Overview
 Influences
 Overview of January Intake course and project skills
strand
 Tasks and questions
 Conclusions
EGAP
Students are often interested in topics beyond the scope
of their own discipline (Basturkmen, 2003:58) .
All disciplines are multi-disciplinary and considering their
own discipline from the perspectives of others in their
(multi-disciplinary) class could be hugely beneficial (de
Chazal, 2013:143).
ESAP
The EAP teacher ‘will be able to recognise and explore
disciplinary differences’ which is demonstrated through
the ability to ‘guide students to investigate the genres and
expert practitioners of their specific discourse
communities’ (BALEAP, 2008)
ESAP
The responsibility of acquiring familiarity with their own
disciplines can be left largely with the student (de
Chazel:141)
Motivation
Dornyei and Ushioda’s (2009) model of the ‘L2
Motivational Self System’
‘the secret of successful language learners was their
possession of a subordinate vision that kept them on
track’ (Dornyei and Ushioda, 2009:25) .
Discipline social identities
‘The social identity approach [is] seeing oneself as a
member of particular social groups, the associated
sense of belonging’ (Smyth, et al. 2013).
Discipline social identities
…those who identify strongly as a psychology
student would be more likely to develop an intrinsic
interest in the course, as they are likely to share the
normative interests they perceive psychology students to
hold, and this would be expressed in a deep approach
to learning (Smyth, et al. 2013).
Discipline social identities
Considering these effects and the positive effects found
elsewhere of social identity on study continuation (Christ,
van Dick, Wagner, & Stellmacher, 2003)… the
development of discipline-related social identification
is not only a positive educational force, but could
also be considered a valuable graduate attribute of
tertiary education (Platow, 2012 cited in Smyth, et al.
2013).
Overview of course
Number
Total
24
Medicine
4
Science
6
Management, Economics
and Finance
9
IR, Economics and Finance
2
IR, Philosophy and History
3
Biology
3
Chemistry
1
Psychology
1
Computer
Science
1
Overview of the course cont…
IELTS Range: 5.5 - 6.0. No set minimum for subscores.
Two example ‘lower profiles’ are:
IELTS: Listening 5.5, Reading 5.0, Writing 5.0, Speaking 5.5;
IELTS: Listening 5.5, Reading 6.0, Writing 4.5, Speaking 5.5
Two example ‘higher profiles are:
IELTS: Listening 8.5, Reading 8.5, Writing 6.5, Speaking 8.0;
IELTS: Listening 9.0, Reading 9.0, Writing 6.5, Speaking 7.5
Overview of the course cont…
 6 Modules over 2 semesters
 First semester
Academic Subjects Module
Project Skills Module
Integrated Skills Module
 Second semester
Academic Subjects Module
Oral Presentations Module
Integrated Skills Module
Overview of the course cont…
• Project Skills
Poster
Workshop as part of a conference
Podcast
Video
Tasks
Look at posters and consider the following:
 Can you identify what disciplines the students are
from?
 What have they learnt about their discipline?
Language/content.
 What skills were they practising?
 What do you think is the theme that links all of the
posters?
Questions
Form groups and discuss the following:
 How would/could exploration of academic identities
work in your institution?
 What themes can you identify that would work across
disciplines?
 How could the project be improved?
References
Basturkmen, H. (2003). Specificity and ESP Course Design, RELC Journal, 34 (1)
p48-63.
de Chazal (2012) The General – Specific Debate in EAP: Which case is the most
convincing for most contexts?, Journal of Second Language Teaching and Research,
2 (1), p135-148.
Dornyei, Z and Ushioda, E. (2009). Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self.
Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Hamp-Lyons, L. (2005). Editorial for 4,1: Some further thoughts on EAP and JEAP,
Journal for English for Academic Purposes, 4 (1), p1-4.
References
Hyland, K. (2006) English for Academic Purposes: an advanced resource book,
London: Routledge.
Smyth, L., Mavor, K. I., Platow, M. J., Grace, D. M. & Reynolds K. J., 2013.
Discipline social identification, study norms and learning approach in university
students. Educational Psychology. Available at:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01443410.2013.822962 [Accessed 25
February 2016].