Designing an EAP pedagogy for exchange scholars

Why are we doing it?

The target learners of this curriculum are 8 exchange scholars at the University of Cambridge. These mature students speak Mandarin Chinese as their first language, with sufficiently high proficiency in receptive English skills but comparatively low competence in productive skills. This pattern can be seen in the vast discrepancy of the IELTS bands with 7 to 8 in reading and listening but 5.5 to 6.5 in writing and speaking. After a brief discussion with the students, it is believed that this skill gap derives from their previous experience in the use of English. In this regard, as researchers in China, they read and sometimes listen to international academic materials (e.g., articles) but hardly present their ideas in English. Although most of them had previously published English papers, they claimed that the entire process significantly depended on translation services.

Therefore, this curriculum is designed to train them in academic speaking and writing, focusing on helping them transfer the existing meta-linguistic knowledge (e.g., argument making and textual organization) and create a better interface between their input and output skills. The practical aim is to motivate and enable them to express opinions in various disciplines, primarily in computer sciences or engineering. The students themselves also expressed their expectation of learning some strategies for English acquisition during their disciplinary studies. The university suggested that a covert aim is to build a sense of community which may boost interdisciplinary collaboration among these scholars.

The instructor is also Chinese but will use English as the main medium of instruction, with strategic translanguaging if advantageous (see below for more). The university provides a computer, a projector, and a screen in a seminar room with an internet connection. All the students reported that they had access to mobile devices including both phones and laptops. Due to the need to strike a balance between their English learning and academic training, the administrative sector requires the curriculum designer to complete the whole course in three weeks with no more than six classes. Hence, the students will attend this course two times every week for three weeks. Despite this restriction, the students claimed that they are willing to learn English in their spare time if proper instruction can be provided.

Some theoretical considerations

The design of this curriculum subscribes to three theoretical accounts for the nature of language, with several pedagogical principles supporting these theories.

Firstly, following the function and interactional views of the linguistic system, it is believed that language (in this case, English) will serve as a tool for conveying functional meanings to achieve specific social/world purposes (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014; Mickan & Wallace, 2020; Thompson, 2013) and maintaining social relations (Richards & Rodgers, 2014). The reason why these two views should be adopted rather than a more cognitive or structural view is that the ultimate goal of this course centres around the communicative purpose instead of the structures of language. In other words, as the students have already acquired the lexicons and syntactic rules required by academic studies, they are more likely to need an enhancement in communicative skills rather than a surface-level accumulation of linguistic stimuli. In line with this view, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) will be consulted as one of the core techniques (Richards & Rodgers, 2014). With CLT’s concentration on the communicative competence (Howatt, 1984), the curriculum will integrate authentic situations where the students can use English to express academic opinions such as academic conferences (also linked to Task-Based Language Teaching, Payant & Kim, 2019). In addition, highlighted by an interactional view, the students will be encouraged to negotiate meaning with each other in these designed situations.

These collaborative activities lead to the third theoretical principle, that is, sociocultural theory (SCT) which emphasises the scaffolding effects of the more competent others in the zone of proximal development (Yu & Guo, 2013). The current curriculum features collaborative projects with shared objectives participated by both instructors and learners, to better create the space for scaffolding between contributors. The practitioner will strategically phase out the explicit instruction and transform his/her role from organiser to team member after the target learners acquire the essential elements. This theoretical approach is particularly suitable for the current curriculum because the learners are not preparing for any standardised exams but for scholarly communication, a unique social activity.

Global Englishes as a critical paradigm is incorporated to (1) ensure the learners can engage with the diverse academic community, (2) motivate them to explore a glocal style of English use, and (3) prevent them from self-discrimination caused by the power relationship of languages. Due to the unique nature of the target learners, translanguaging (i.e., the judicious utilisation of L1) is particularly beneficial in improving the understanding of English texture. As they have a robust knowledge of how to make an argument in Chinese, the comparison of the discourse between two languages will allow the students to quickly feel how they can transfer the previously learnt macro-knowledge into the new language.

What is the goal of the curriculum?

The objective of the current curriculum is to train the target learners in the productive skills of academic English, which is needed to be actively involved in international scholarly communication. Specifically, as the students have gained enough knowledge in receptive skills, the focus will be oriented to improving the understanding of the style, register, appropriateness, and conventions that emerged in the academic context. By the end of the unit, it is expected that the students (1) can express their academic opinions in a strategic manner, (2) can negotiate the meaning of relevant materials with the other scholars, and (3) develop a toolkit to continue their English learning in future. The secondary goal of this curriculum is to motivate the participants to carry on interdisciplinary collaboration in English with a boosted confidence and a sense of community.‌‌

Summary of unit content & sequencing

Lesson overview – activities, materials & assessment

Some Reflections

This course is designed to help exchange scholars with sufficient receptive skills to improve their productive skills. Therefore, this unit attempts to maximise the opportunities that the learners could engage in real academic conversations, after developing their metalinguistic awareness of the organisation of the academic text. For instance, in Lesson 2 to 6, they will be instructed to write academic abstracts, present self-selected research, involve in the negotiation of meaning, and start academic-related relational works. These attempts follow a functional and social-cognitive view of language, which highlights the importance of learning English in use (Richards & Rodgers, 2014).

As academic content can be cognitively demanding, the materials were specially designed to prevent burnout (Li et al., 2018). First, the input materials were in the forms of both manuscripts and presentations, which guides the learners to focus on details and the organisation of text beyond the content. Second, the materials in collaborative writing are about academic writing, which can help the students learn the textual organisation at the micro and macro levels alike. Third, the students were encouraged to present their own studies at the mock conference, which were then reused in the Behind the Conference teaching.

Negotiation of meaning is one of the core elements in this curriculum, when students actively participate in the Q&A session of the mock conference. This helps the learners better comprehend the others’ ideas and, at the same time, become able to address the others’ questions in English-speaking academic settings (Wingate, 2018; Zhang, 2018). The collaborative writing section locates the students in a possible real-world setting, that is, to conduct projects with the other scholars and write a manuscript together. Peer feedbacks and other scaffolding were a substantial part of the lessons, which again follow a social cognitive perspective (Atkinson et al., 2018). It also entails the covert aim of the course to motivate the students to do interdisciplinary research.

Lastly, the unit equips the students with the necessary strategies, meta-linguistic skills, and motivation to learn English independently in future, which is significant for the students in the present course (Mickan & Wallace, 2020).

Reference

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Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. (2014). An introduction to functional grammar. Routledge.

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Li, Y., Flowerdew, J., & Cargill, M. (2018). Teaching English for Research Publication Purposes to science students in China: A case study of an experienced teacher in the classroom. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 35, 116–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2018.07.006

Mickan, P., & Wallace, I. (Eds.). (2020). The Routledge handbook of language education curriculum design. Routledge.

Payant, C., & Kim, Y. (2019). Impact of task modality on collaborative dialogue among plurilingual learners: A classroom-based study. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 22(5), 614–627. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2017.1292999

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