The future of EAP

The field of EAP

How is the field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) developing now, and where is it heading? The answers to these profound and challenging questions are of relevance to the work of English language teachers in a wide range of contexts.

To work out where EAP is going, we need to investigate what is happening now, and extrapolate future trends from current tendencies. This article aims to take a step back in order to put current practice in a broad context, before examining the recent growth of EAP and considering how it might develop in the future.

Class systems

In many cultures, such as Britain, a three-group class system has long been recognised: a working class, middle class and upper class. However, such divisions have, for many decades, been eroding and today it is arguably more accurate to recognise a two-group system (which can be further refined and subdivided, but such work is beyond the scope of this article).

In simple terms the two groups comprise: people with a basic education who work in unskilled or semi-skilled jobs (group A); and people who have extended their education academically, professionally or vocationally, and work in skilled jobs (group B). Group B includes trades (such as electricians), vocational careers (such as nursing), management roles in any sector, and the professions (such as teachers).

EAP and education

The enterprise of EAP is aimed squarely at group B: EAP exists to serve people aspiring to education in English beyond the school-leaving age. The key to the future of EAP lies in its current scope, which is expanding. Since the early days of EAP in the 1960s it has centred on academic institutions, notably English-medium universities. This activity remains the bedrock of EAP, but there are signs that EAP is broadening, more of which later.

This description of a two-group division centred on education is also relevant to EAP – and English language teaching (ELT) at large – for a further reason. Traditionally, ELT has distinguished between L1 and L2 users of English – widely referred to as native speakers and non-native speakers respectively. In many ways this distinction has influenced EAP negatively.

An education divide

Far more convincing than a division based on a student’s first language is one based on their level of education. Again this falls into two groups: people educated up to school-leaving age; and people with post-school education, which can include academic, professional or vocational education. This is in effect the same division as the two-group system described above.

In other words, it seems logical to recognise a common distinction in both socio-economic and educational terms: people worldwide aiming to succeed in the professions and the more skilled careers frequently need, among other skills, a functional operational command of English.

Which language to learn?

For people whose L1 is not English, English is the obvious language to learn in order to engage with international communication, business and study. For people whose L1 is English, there is no obvious L2 – it could, depending on the person’s location and outlook, be Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili or another language. In practice, the lack of an obvious L2 to learn means that L1 speakers of English typically do not have a functional L2. In brief, people aspiring to group B either have to learn English as their L2 or already know it because it is their L1.

EAP for work

The immediate aims of EAP are widely understood: to meet the needs of students involved in English-medium study. Pre-sessional (pre-service) and in-sessional (in-service) programmes have evolved to meet these needs. Less well articulated are the ultimate aims of the students themselves: EAP has to meet their future professional needs. From the typical EAP student’s perspective, they are not learning English out of any intrinsic interest in the language. Nor are they learning it exclusively or primarily for their forthcoming academic study.

EAP students are learning English for their professional career – which is preceded by their academic study. In short: EAP students need academic English for an academic programme lasting from one year (for Anglophone postgraduate degrees and full-time MBAs) to three or four years (for an undergraduate degree) followed by professional English for 30 or 40 years of work. Only a tiny minority need English exclusively for academic study: these are the students who plan to have academic careers in an English-medium university.

Unpredictability

This observation brings us to a crucial point: while students’ future needs can be expressed in very broad terms – essentially academic or professional – it is problematic to define them in great detail. This is because we cannot reliably predict what students will do or need to do in the future.

We can be pretty confident about the basics – for instance they will need to be able to listen to talks and lectures, and speak effectively in settings such as seminars and meetings – but we don’t really know what specific language and skills they will need. Our student today may be planning to study engineering, but before long they may become a project manager. Who knows what else might happen, or what they need to be able to do later in life?

Shocks

To bridge the gap between where they are now and where they might be heading, EAP students need to deal with a number of challenges. Janette Ryan (2012) identified three interconnected ‘shocks’ which face students beginning their academic studies in English. These are: academic shock (which is the most persistent); culture shock (mainly found when the student studies in another country); and language shock. EAPteachers need a good understanding of all of these, as EAP entails far more than just delivering language. A useful source of support is the UK-based EAP teachers’ association BALEAP, which has published a comprehensive set of competences for both teachers and students (BALEAP, 2008).

EAP today

So, EAP takes on board not only language, but also academic and cultural considerations. If EAP is becoming global (de Chazal 2014: 15), academic discourse already is, with its global prose stripped of the author’s dialect (Biber et al, 1999: 16). The market for tertiary education is globalising rapidly, and this process is bound to affect academic practice, culture and language.

Exams and EAP

EAP is likely to continue on its current trajectory of rapid growth. A quick look at the most successful academic test of English, IELTS, can serve as proxy to illustrate this growth to date. Thirty years ago, in 1985, there were 10,000 IELTS candidates (IELTS 2015). Ten years later, in 1995, there were 43,000. Then the numbers really flew: ½ million candidates in 2003 rising to 1 million candidates annually in 2007 and around 2½ million worldwide today.

Its closest rival, TOEFL, has seen similar, though less spectacular growth (ETS 2015), while Pearson Academic trails behind these two major players. Meanwhile, as one of only two SELT (Secure English Language Test) providers (along with IELTS), Trinity College London is well-placed to attract new candidates destined for academic study. These large numbers of test-takers illustrate the large and rising demand foran accepted test of academic English to enable academic study in English.

Internationalisation

Figures on the UNESCO website directly trace the rise of the international student. In 2000, some 2 million students studied internationally. By 2012 this figure had risen to over 4 million. Alongside this rise has been the rise of the international brand: institutions consolidating and promoting themselves to attract international students in the global marketplace.

UNESCO figures show the top five countries account for almost 50% of the market: US (18%), UK (11%), France (7%), Australia (6%) and Germany (5%). The top three outgoing markets are China (700,00),India (190,000) and Korea (124,000).

Global and regional hubs

These figures mask certain trends, which look likely to accelerate in the coming years. Market share for the top five markets fell from 55% to 47% over the last fifteen years and new regional hubs are growing, e.g. the third most popular destination for Arab students after France and the United States is the United Arab Emirates and South Africa attracted 22% of the students from sub-Saharan Africa in 2012.

International classes

At a more local level, internationalisation has quietly been taking place in institutions at large. To take the example of a university I have worked at as a visiting lecturer in EAP since 2008, the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, the number and proportion of international students has been growing year on year. Most recently, in the postgraduate class I taught (a large class of around 70 students), some 20 countries were represented including many other Slavic countries, European countries whose students were on Erasmus programmes, and countries as far afield as Angola, Brazil and Vietnam. In this class, Czech students were in a small minority.

English-medium, anywhere

What are all these students striving for? What is clear is that they value English-medium degree programmes highly, and they are prepared to invest and to travel in order to access this education. Some students in my Prague class told me that they really wanted to study in the UK but that it was too expensive for them; most students however were perfectly happy with their Czech experience and said it was good value. Some students were actively learning the Czech language; others weren’t as they didn’t see it as necessary for their survival and functioned mainly in English – socially as well as academically.

Growth of EMI

In a similar trend, many countries have been transforming into English-medium powerhouses. Sweden, for instance, now offers most of its degree programmes in English, with just a few exceptions (for subjects such as Scandinavian studies or history). Turkey opened its first private English-medium university in 1984 (Bilkent University in Ankara), since which time over 70 new private English-medium universities have opened. Very few international students studied in Turkey in the 80s and 90s, but by 2012 there were over 25,000: part-way towards an official target of 100,000.

Other countries mirror this trend in their own way, from the Emirates through Malaysia to France – where English-medium programmes are now widespread in its tertiary institutions. In the UK, one of the mostinternationalised elite institutions, the London School of Economics (part of the University of London) over 70% of its students come from overseas.

New territories

Amid this accelerating internationalisation and globalisation, EAP is staking out new demographic territories. Not only do EAP teachers teach undergraduate and postgraduate students, but increasingly also their professors who now have to deliver in English. At the other end of the age spectrum, ‘secondary EAP’ is another growth area: the teaching of EAP to older secondary school students (aged 16–18) who are gearing up for English-medium degree study.

Convergence and divergence

Meanwhile, parallel trends of homogeneity and greater specificity can be observed. On the one hand the Bologna Process has aimed to codify tertiary education programmes in order to compare them acrossborders. This ongoing process brings with it the language of convergence: trends towards standardisation of time, level, content, terminology, outcomes and much more. This shift to greater transparency and similarity greatly facilitates the internationalisation and student mobility in academic study.

On the other hand there is a sporadic trend towards greater specificity: with the growth of English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP). The proponents of ESAP argue for deeper investigation into the student’s academic discipline, leading to tasks and language which aims to meet their individual needs. What is less clear is how realistic it is to attempt to identify and describe the target situation, and whether it is advisable to do so, given the unpredictable nature of the student’s subsequent academic and professional progress.

Teaching and learning EAP

What do these changes mean for EAP teachers?

In pedagogic terms, with increasing globalisation, the EAP classroom offers excellent opportunities for communication. There is a genuine communication gap between students, with scope for extended activitiesinvolving interaction based on cultural and disciplinary differences. Productive tasks could include working together to write and present a report on differences between educational systems in different countries, collaborating on a project to investigate which educational qualifications are necessary for certain careers in different countries, or exploring how people learn across cultures.

In professional terms, EAP teachers can be proud of their role in influencing individual students, many of whom themselves will become influential. Further afield, EAP teachers can look for ways of shaping and developing other EAP contexts via discussions, sharing practices, writing materials, participating in training and conferences, and above all communicating with other practitioners globally.

The future of EAP

We have explored the recent growth of EAP, and considered where EAP is heading. Put simply, EAP is all about enabling students to progress their level of education through the medium of English. Students have a variety of motivations for embarking on this education; many such motivations are economically-inspired. In other words, students want to achieve academic qualifications in English so that they can progress to the next level: a worthwhile career. Students who need to study in English will continue to need educational guidance whatever their level – by starting early while still at secondary school, before and during their academic study, and beyond, while they are building their careers.

Logically, EAP will branch out into all these areas, providing targeted input where needed. A fresh undergraduate does not know it all, whether in terms of their discipline or in terms of the world of work. Nor does a recent postgraduate fresh off an English-medium programme of study. They will continue to need English input in the broadest sense: to help with specialist report writing, reading research papers, giving presentations at conferences or engaging in a new area of study. They may be most challenged by academic, cultural or language challenges. EAP teachers can help them all the way.

References

BALEAP (2008) BALEAP Competency Framework for Teachers of English for Academic Purposes [online]. Available at: https://www.baleap.org//media/uploads/pdfs/teap-competency-framework.pdf (accessedNovember 18th 2015).

Biber D, Johansson S, Leech G, Conrad S & Finegan, E (1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman.

de Chazal E (2014) English for Academic Purposes (Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

IELTS Available at: http://www.ielts.org/researchers/history_of_ielts.aspx (accessed November 18th 2015).

Pearson Test of English www.pearsonpte.com (accessed November 18th 2015).

Ryan J (2012) Teaching International Students. Talk at the Institute of Education [online] Available at: http://www.ioe.ac.uk/about/documents/About_Policies/Institute_of_Education_March_2012.pdf (accessedNovember 18th 2015) [Slides 15 – 18].

TOEFL Available at: https://www.ets.org/s/toefl/pdf/toefl_ibt_insight_s1v6.pdf (accessed November 18th 2016).

UNESCO (2014) Global Flow Of Tertiary-Level Students [online] Available at: http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Pages/internationalstudent-flow-viz.aspx (accessed November 18th 2015).

Edward de Chazal has been teaching English since 1987, and since 1990 he has specialised in ESP and EAP in Turkey, Kuwait, the Czech Republic and the UK. From 2002–2011 he coordinated EAP programmes at UCL in London, and is now an independent consultant in EAP. Edward presents regularly at IATEFL and BALEAP, and has co-written the new multi-level Oxford EAP series and the English for Academic Purposes title in the Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers series. He has recently launched Jurassic Academic (www.jurassicacademic.com), a free-to-use educational resource containingvideos and visuals on key academic topics.