Highlights of “English for Academic Purpose - Liz Hamp-Lyons”

Hey Friends,

Few days back I studied a very interesting research paper “English for Academic Purpose - Liz Hamp-Lyons”. In this blog I will highlight important aspects discussed by Liz Hamp Lyons.

First of all, I would like to say that it is one of the best research papers I have studied so far. It contains lots of references and examples.

What is EAP (English for Academic Purpose)?

English for academic purposes (EAP) entails training students, usually in a higher education setting, to use language appropriately for study. It is one of the most common forms of English for specific purposes (ESP).

An EAP program focuses instruction on skills required to perform in an English-speaking academic context across core subject areas generally encountered in a university setting. In common with most language teaching, EAP instruction teaches vocabulary, grammar and the four skills (reading, writing, speaking - including pronunciation - and listening), but usually tries to tie these to the specific study needs of students; for example, a writing lesson would focus on writing essays rather than, say, business letters. Similarly, the vocabulary chosen for study inclines to be based on academic texts.

Liz Hamp- Lyons has divided this Research paper in four parts:-

·        Background

·        Research

·        Practice

·        Current and Future Trends and Directions

BACKGROUND

The term ‘EAP’ first came into general use through the British organization SELMOUS (Special English Language materials for Overseas University Students), which was formed in 1972.

The field of E.A.P. was first characterized within a larger perspective by Strevens (1977). Strevens saw E.A.P. as a branch of the larger field of English for Specific Purposes or E.S.P. (which was known in its early days as ‘English for special purposes’).

Strevens described –

1.) A move away from an emphasis on the literature and culture of English speakers and towards teaching for practical command of the language.

 2.) A move towards a view that the teaching of the language should be matched to the needs and purposes of the language.

In discussing ESP and EAP, Strevens (1977) argued            that courses can be specific in four ways:

1.     By restricting the language taught to only those skills which are required for the learner’s immediate purposes.

2.     By selecting from the whole language only those items of vocabulary, grammar patterns, linguistic functions, etc., which are required for the learner’s immediate purposes.

3.     By including only topics, themes and discourse contexts that are directly relevant to the learner’s immediate language needs.

4.     By addressing only those communicative needs that relate to the learner’s immediate purposes.

Further Liz Hamp-Lyons, focuses on the Need analysis of the learner. It is fundamental to an EAP approach to course design and teaching. A need analysis indicates that the study situation is more specific, many of the same areas of study skills are still taught, but with particular attention to the language used in the specific disciplinary context identified in the needs analysis.

 The language is attended to at the levels of the following:

a.)  Register:

Lexical and grammatical/ structural features

 b) Discourse:

The effect of communicative context; the relationship between the text / discourse and its speakers / writers / hearers / readers.

C.) Genre:    

How language is used in a particular setting, such research papers, dissertations, formal lectures.

RESEARCH

According to Jordan, there are four dimensions of needs: those of the target situation, of the employer or sponsor, of the student, of the course designer and of teacher.

With many references Liz Hamp-lyons also focuses on the macro-level analyses and micro-level analyses. And also on the discourse as well as needs analysis.

There is also significant research into the assessment of EAP.in 1970s came in English Language Testing Service (ELTS) by the British council. With the further research and need IELTS International English Testing Service came into existence in 1989.

PRACTICE

A main activity of specialist in EAP is materials design and development. In –house materials can a specific to the study context of the students, and can be designed to suit pre-study classes where all the practice materials must be built into the course text, or to concurrent courses where the materials can be closely linked to the teaching going on in a subject class. Published materials, on the other hand, are inevitably fairly general. The fundamental similarities between study demands at the same educational level can be capitalized on in creating materials intended to provide basic preparation for good study habits. Among the earliest books in this area were Study Skills in English, Panorama and Strengthen Your Study Skills. EAP courses also typically focus attention on the language skills separately; the ‘rules’ and strategies of academic skills are not like those of the general language skills, and this is acknowledged in books such as

     I.        Study Listening (Lynch 1983),

    II.        Study Writing (Hamp- Lyons and Heasley 1987) and

  III.        Study reading (Glendinning and Holmstrom 1992).Some of the books in the Cambridge University Press study skills series are a decade old now, but are still popularly used in many countries.

                     One of the aspects of EAP that attracts the best English Language teachers is the potential for developing one’s own material based on needs analysis of the immediate situation. In- house materials have the great strength of responding directly to the local needs; however, the more specific materials are to a situation, the less likely it is that they will be published as textbooks for economic reasons.

                      In the USA a concern with literacy dominates the literature and the terminology of academic skills development. Swales have been instrumental in developing a more sophisticated understanding of the language needs of postgraduate students in particular.

CURRENT and FUTURE TRENDS and DIRECTIONS:

                 It is increasingly understood that children entering schooling can be helped to learn more effectively, as well as to integrate better into the educational structure, if they are taught specifically academic skills and language needed for social communication.

                 The knowledge base which has built around traditional university-based academic needs has led to the understanding that academic language needs neither begin nor end in upper high school/undergraduate education, but span formal schooling at every level. Going still further, a related development is a concern with the English language skills of non-native English speaking academics, especially those teaching and researching in non-English language countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore, and this group’s needs are beginning to be addressed. We can expect this more all –encompassing view of EAP to develop much further before it is exhausted.

                The discourse of academic literacy is more usually found outside TESOL.  In UK it is associated with the Lancaster critical linguistic group; and in Australia with the critical genre group. With its basis in educational Marxism and critical linguistic critical education, ‘academic literacy’ argues from very different premises than traditional EAP. The debate over motives and means in this area- in the pages of the English for Specific purposes journal between Pennycook and Allison- provides fascinating insight into these issues. Part of this debate relates to the role of English in the modern and future world, and the evident dominance it now has in scholarly publication in most parts of the world. We can expect this to be a fruitful and controversial area of research –and polemic –in the first years of the twenty- first century.

CONCLUSION

Thus EAP (English for Academic Purposes) is an important aspect of TESOL. Like the research paper Satan and Saraswati here also we can see some strength as well as weakness of EAP. It is a wide field and therefore a lot of scope is there for research in the modern time.