Robert McLarty chats to us about his experience of teaching EAP.
I have about twenty-four students in my current class and their level is somewhere between B1 and B1+, depending on which skill we are assessing. Most of them have already completed lower levels in the institute and the rest will have been tested and assigned to this level. The Centre offers New Zealand Certificates in English language (NZCEL) and this class is preparing students for Level 3 (Applied Academic).
This means that, according to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) students passing the level will have the general language skills required to participate with increasing independence and fluency in the academic community. The course teaches the four skills separately with one teacher looking after reading and writing, and the other listening and speaking.
Participants on the course are there for a variety of reasons. Some want to complete it in order to have the minimum language qualification to enter certain mainstream vocational courses such as Culinary Arts, Trades or Horticulture at Certificate level. All of these courses will be delivered in English so it is essential that students have the requisite skills to participate fully alongside native speaker students. Others in the class will want to go on to complete a Level 4 qualification which will be equivalent to an IELTS 6. Their ambitions may well be to enter an undergraduate programme so, again, all four skills need to be well developed in addition to study skills, critical thinking, cultural awareness and emotional intelligence.
So how do we set about developing all of the above alongside all the key grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation? What is the reality of being part of an academic community? Is EAP a completely new set of language and skills or is there still room for general language progress? How can we develop that additional set of soft skills? What do students really need to be able to do and how do we assess their competence? Let’s look at each of the skills in turn.
Reading
As far as reading goes many of our students struggle with core skills such as skimming, scanning, getting general meaning, finding supporting evidence and so on. These skills can be practised on any text, irrespective of content, provided it is of reasonable length and level. I find that using texts which are more mainstream allows me to concentrate on the skill rather than the actual content which can be problematic with more academic texts. Our groups are made up of a wide range of students with very varied interests so finding texts which are engaging and useful is often half the battle. Academic texts by their very nature are usually long and not ideally suited to in-class practice. Texts which have been abridged for EAP by ELT publishers tend to be very specific in terms of content and don’t easily generate reaction and discussion from students with our academic profile.
Encouraging reading for pleasure is a challenge but one which is worth persevering with since hours logged reading will always pay off in terms of grammar and vocabulary acquisition and development of skills such as prediction, summarising, reporting and deducing meaning from context. Having learners read what interests them without the need to necessarily answer someone else’s comprehension questions is always going to be profitable for them. One of the key learning outcomes for this skill is Demonstrate understanding by reading and applying information of extended descriptions and/or reports on reasonably familiar topics in an academic context.
Getting students to report back on their reading, either to a classmate or a group or to the teacher in a tutorial role is, therefore useful practice for this particular skill.
Listening
Listening is traditionally hard to assess as we are still not completely sure what is going on in our learners’ minds as they listen to a lecture or a conversation. General content is often as useful to our students as ESP content unless we are completely certain of the academic context our learners are going to find themselves in. Otherwise there is no obvious gain in playing a biology lecture as opposed to a talk on the benefits of healthy eating.
Writing
In terms of writing, students at this level are still dealing with basic grammatical and lexical gaps in their knowledge. Recurring errors and direct translations from their own language reveal a lack of understanding of some key areas and aspects of English. It is a big jump from writing emails to friends to having to write discursive essays. Shorter scaffolded tasks are useful and again can be general or academic in nature at this level.
Speaking
When it comes to speaking, their main task during the semester is to give an oral presentation of 6-8 minutes. This will have a slight academic feel in that they have to do research, reference their sources and show their own evaluation and opinion. Practice throughout the semester can be based around short presentations starting from no slides up to seven or eight. The topics can be places, people, historical events, processes, in fact anything where they have to find out, evaluate and deliver information in clear, accurate English. Again I am often drawn towards “general” content rather than specific EAP. The signposting language, the tips for slide content, the use of visuals and body language are the same for all presentations.
The way I make sure that the course content and learning outcomes prepare them for the academic community is to continually link what we are doing to why we are doing it. Coping in the academic world is listening to classmates as much as to lectures, speaking with the whole range of people they will be in contact with, reading short, long texts and articles, taking notes, preparing slides, sending emails and writing essays. Each and every lesson should prepare them in some small way for their future academic life, the content needs to be , above all, engaging and not overwhelming.
Click here to watch Robert’s presentation, How much A does an EAP course need?
Find out more about Academic English with Cambridge.