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.
Comments
Post a Comment