What is EAP?

Andy Gillett, University of Hertfordshire

Introduction.
At the ESP SIG general meeting at Keele, there seemed to be a general lack of
knowledge about EAP. What is EAP? Who are EAP lecturers? What do they do?
What are they interested in? I would like to try to answer some of these questions.
It is probably true that most EAP lecturers are working in institutes of higher
education where English is the medium of instruction. They see many students for
whom English is not a first language and who could benefit from English classes.
For some students, improving their English is essential - they will fail their courses
otherwise. Some think they can get better grades if they learn more English while
others study English because they like it. The object of an EAP - English for
Academic Purposes - course is to help overseas students overcome some of the
linguistic difficulties involved in studying in English. The job of the EAP lecturer is to
find out what the students have to do and help them to do it better.
EAP is a branch of ESP in that the teaching content is matched to the requirements
of the learners. It is also considered to be ESP if we take Robinson's (1991, pp. 25) features which are usually thought of as being criterial to ESP courses.

First ESP is goal directed - the students are not learning the English
language for the sake of it, but because they need to use English. EAP
students are usually current higher education students or they are hoping to
go on to higher education after their EAP course. They need to learn English
in order to succeed in their academic careers.
Second, ESP courses are based on a needs analysis, which aims to specify
as closely as possible exactly what it is that students have to do through the
medium of English. One important feature of EAP courses is the close
attention that is paid to students' aims and what they plan to study. The first
stage in any EAP, and ESP, course is to find out exactly why the students
are learning English and therefore what language and skills they will need.

Often there is a very clearly specified period for the course. Most EAP
students are doing fixed term courses in preparation for an academic
course.

ESP learners tend to be adults rather than children. Most EAP students are
over 18 and they will have made a difficult decision to study in an English
medium university.

Students may need specialist language, but this is not necessarily so. It is
the activities that the students will want to engage in that defines the course.
As with all ESP, an EAP lecturer would not take a text and say, " What can I

do with this?" The starting point is always, " What will my students need to
do with this text and how can I help them to do it?"

In some cases, a very high level of proficiency is not required, as long as the
students can succeed in their aims. Students need to be able to get good
marks for assignments. Our job as EAP lecturers is to find ways to enable
them to do this - getting their present tenses correct may not be as
important the overall structure of the essay.

Even so, EAP has not been mentioned very often in the standard ESP
methodology books up to now. Hutchinson and Waters (1987) have little to say
about it. Kennedy & Bolitho (1984, pp. 5, 30-31, 110-117) define it and use EAP
situations for some of their case studies they also offer some EAP listening and
speaking exercises. Robinson (1980, pp. 67-70) looks at some of the materials
available. McDonough (1984, pp. 94-95, 115-117,122-123) looks at the language of
seminars and EAP testing and Robinson (1991, pp. 100-106) provides a good
short survey of the present state of EAP. Several articles in Mackay & Mountford
(1978) look at specific EAP problems: listening, language for economists and study
skills. It is to be hoped, however, that this will be addressed by the publication of
Jordan (in press).
Courses.
EAP courses are very often pre-sessional courses. That is, they are taken before
the students' main academic courses start. Most universities in the UK offer these
pre-sessional courses, which vary in length from one year to two weeks. The EAP
courses often take place at the institution where the students intend to take their
main academic course but this need not be the case. These courses are intended
to prepare Students in Higher Education coming to study in the UK to study in
English. They also allow students to familiarise themselves with the new
environment and facilities of the institution before their main courses start. The
students need to learn to adopt particular approaches to their study and learn
strategies and skills that will enable them to succeed in the UK HE system. The
purpose of the pre-sessional EAP course is to bring them up to the level that is
necessary to start a course. In this case EAP tutors need to liaise with admissions
tutors to find out what is necessary.
EAP courses can also be in-sessional courses. That is they are taken at the same
time as the students' main academic course. In-sessional courses can take one of
two forms. They can be seen as language support classes - these are usually free
drop-in classes held at lunch-times or Wednesday afternoons and students attend
when they are able. Increasingly it is also becoming possible for international
students to take credit-bearing EAP courses as part of their degree.
EAP/Study-Skills.

There is often discussion whether these two terms - EAP and study skills - mean
the same. I find it useful to make a distinction between general study skills that are
not concerned with language and language study skills that will probably form part
of an EAP course. There are many study skills books available for native-speakers
and they usually concentrate on matters like: where to study, when to study, time
management, remembering, developing study habits, filing and organising books,
how to spend leisure time and so on, although they do often deal with aspects of
study skills that involve language such as planning essays and so on. These
general study skills are obviously important to our Students in Higher Education,
but they are not usually the main objective of EAP courses. The language study
skills will form an essential component of the EAP skills classes.
Academic Writing Classes
For many students this is probably the most important as it is the way in which
most of their work is assessed. The aim of an academic writing class is to prepare
students for academic writing tasks. These tasks vary very much from writing short
answers in exams to writing dissertations and theses. Of course, accurate
grammar, punctuation and language use forms an important component of an EAP
writing class, along with specific teaching of the formal language required. This will
involve teaching of different text types, linking words, signposting expressions,
introductions and conclusions. It is also important to teach UK writing conventions
as these can vary very much from those even in neighbouring European countries.
However, EAP lecturers often find they need to concentrate on the process of
writing - planning, organising, presenting, re-writing, proof-reading, etc. (Robinson,
1988). In my opinion, the most useful single skill that I can teach most of the
students I meet is organisation. If students make little grammatical mistakes, they
get a small correction. However, if there is a problem with organisation, they will
get a big red question mark. Writing classes are often task based and project work
allows students to work in their own field (see Bloor & St John, 1988). Projects also
allow students to become familiar with ways of working in British HE. In particular
they will have the opportunity to develop the right kind of approach to studying in
the UK. This involves developing a willingness to accept responsibility for their own
learning so that they are able to learn independently using initiative and selfdiscipline. They will need to develop the ability to think logically and independently,
to be reflective and critical, to analyse, to synthesise and to be creative. They will
also need to develop the ability to use IT, to mount well-presented arguments, to
solve problems and to work as a member of a team.
The following would be typical content:

Research and using the library: finding relevant information, using

catalogues, books, periodicals, bibliographies and indexes.
Using sources: making notes and writing up notes - paraphrasing,
summarising, quoting & referring to sources, writing a bibliography.

Writing descriptions of places, objects etc classifying and categorising

comparing and contrasting reporting and narrating.

Describing processes and developments: expressing purpose, means and

method, degrees of certainty, reasons and explanations/cause and effect
describing developments and changes describing a sequence of
events/time relations.

Writing instructions.

Developing an argument: presenting arguments, ideas and opinions

expressing certainty and doubt supporting an argument: illustrating and
exemplifying ideas refuting arguments, ideas and opinions drawing
conclusions.

Writing skills: different kinds of writing, organisation - presentation and

layout spelling and punctuation including graphs, charts and tables style
revising the essay - proof-reading.

Academic Listening Course

Many students are initially very worried about their listening skills. Academic
listening usually involves the non-native speaker of English trying to follow a
lecture or discussion in English and write adequate notes on it. As in many ESP
classes, there is the question of whether the problems are listening problems or
language problems. Certainly much listening to lectures or similar texts is essential.
There is also a need for making students aware of the way lectures are organised,
the particular kind of language that is used in lectures (Lynch, 1983) and making
sure they know the language, particularly the pronunciation of familiar words, of
their own subject. For me the most important skill is for students to learn to
recognising the structure of lectures - the main points and subsidiary points.
A typical syllabus would include:

How to take notes.

Recognising lecture structure: understanding relationships in the lecture
understanding relations within the sentence/complex sentences importance
markers, signposts.

Deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words and word groups.

Recognising implications: information not explicitly stated recognising the

speaker's attitude. Evaluating the importance of information - selecting
information.

Understanding intonation, voice emphasis etc.

Listening skills: skimming - listening to obtain gist scanning - listening to

obtain specific information selective extraction of relevant points to
summarise text.

Academic Speaking Skills Course

This is becoming increasingly important as teaching methods change to involve
more group work, joint projects and group marks. Home students see problems if
Students in Higher Education are not seen to be pulling their weight in collaborative
work. Academic speaking classes try to help the students to be more aware of
what is involved in seminar or group activity and to supply them with some of the
interactional language that is used there. One problem is the difficulty of obtaining
good data from which we can analyse the language involved. In general though,
many confidence raising group work exercises are necessary, as well as teaching
of the language used. Students will be given practice in making presentations,
taking part in discussions on academic topics and so on.
Such a course might include:

The purpose of seminars.

Making a presentation: the structure of presentations making and using
notes to speak from. Introducing the topic giving the information in detail
sequencing, describing similarities and differences comparing and
contrasting illustrating a point - giving examples and referring to research
emphasising a point summarising and concluding.

Controlling the discussion: leading the discussion changing the subject moving on speeding up things coming to a conclusion.

Participating in the discussion: interrupting politely asking questions - asking

for more information/clarification stating a point of view - supporting your
view agreeing and disagreeing - challenging and commenting making
suggestions checking - making sure that you have understood holding the
floor - preventing interruptions.

Listening and note taking.

Academic Reading Course

The big difficulty with reading is the amount involved. These classes therefore aim
to assist the non-native speaker of English studying in the medium of English at
tertiary level to use a wide range of reading strategies in order to receive more
benefit from the course. Many students still rely on painstakingly slow word by
word reading. It soon becomes clear to them, however, that they cannot read every
word in the library. General efficient reading strategies such as scanning to find the
book or chapter, skimming to get the gist and careful reading of important
passages (Wallace, 1980, pp. 9-51) are necessary as well as vocabulary building

exercises in the student's own area. Learning about how texts are structured can
help students to read more efficiently.
An academic reading course could include:

Understanding meaning: deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words and

word groups relations within the sentence/complex sentences implications information not explicitly stated, conceptual meaning, e.g. comparison,
purpose, cause, effect.
Understanding relationships in the text: - text structure the communicative
value of sentences relations between the parts of a text through lexical and
grammatical cohesion devices and indicators in discourse.

Understanding important points distinguishing the main ideas from

supporting detail recognising unsupported claims and claims supported by
evidence - fact from opinion extracting salient points to summarise following
an argument reading critically/evaluating the text.

Reading efficiently: surveying the text, chapter/article, paragraphs, skimming

for gist/general impression scanning to locate specifically required
information reading quickly.

Note taking.

Testing
Most EAP lecturers are involved to some extent in testing Students in Higher
Education. This can involve advising admissions tutors on what external English
language tests are available and what the scores mean. On the basis of these
scores, students can be accepted or given offers conditional on reaching a
particular level of English, or attending a certain length pre-sessional course. The
most well known EAP test is the IELTS (International English Language Testing
System) test. This test is jointly managed by the University of Cambridge Local
Examinations Syndicate, the British Council and IDP Education Australia. The test
tests academic reading, writing speaking and listening and reports the level of each
skill on a band from 1 to 9. Many universities also have their own proficiency tests
which are written, administered and updated by EAP lecturers.
Answering exam questions
For many Students in Higher Education, the biggest worry about studying in
English is exams. Time is the biggest problem, so an ability to understand the
question quickly and plan an answer is important.
IATEFL Conference, Keele

There is always a good selection of EAP related presentations at IATEFL.

Presentations on EAP topics at the recent IATEFL conference at Keele included.
Jeanne Godfrey - Black Holes in EAP - investigated seminars and described what
she described as the " black holes of academic spoken interaction." - what actually
happens in seminars.
Leila El-Badri - A global approach to teaching basic research skills - described how
she teaches the basic skills of summarising, paraphrase, library skills to first-year
students to enable them to write a well-developed research paper.
Carole Arijoki - A module for a module- described how overseas students at British
Universities can gain credit for their English classes.
Jan Fisher - Is English language testing successful in our Kingdom? - looked at the
use of IELTS as a selection tool.
Conclusion
EAP is thus an important area of ESP, accounting for a large amount of the ESP
activity world-wide. Most of the work, however, takes place, unknown to much of
the English language teaching world, in universities. It is discussed in journals and
at conferences such as IATEFL and BALEAP (British Association of Lecturers in
English for Academic Purposes). There have been several EAP related articles in
this newsletter, and maybe there would be interest in more.
References and Further Reading
Adams, P., Heaton, B. & Howarth, P. (Eds.). (1991). Socio-cultural issues in English for
academic purposes. London: Macmillan.
Bloor, M. & St John, M. J. (1988). Project writing: The marriage of process and product.
In P. C. Robinson (Ed.), Academic writing: Process and product(ELT Documents
129, pp. 85-94). London: Modern English Publications.
Blue, G. M. (Ed.). (1993). Language, learning and success: Studying through English.
London: Macmillan.
Brookes, A. & Grundy, P. (Eds.). (1988). Individualisation and autonomy in language
learning (ELT Documents 131). London: Modern English Publications.
Cowie, A. P. & Heaton, J. B. (Eds.). (1977). English for academic purposes. London:
BAAL/SELMOUS.
Flowerdew, J. (Ed.). (1994). Academic listening: Research perspectives. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Hutchinson, T. & Waters, A. (1987). English for specific purposes. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.
Jordan, R. R. (1989). English for academic purposes (EAP). Language Teaching,
22, 150-164.
Jordan, R. R. (1997). English for academic purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
Kennedy, C. & Bolitho, R. (1984). English for specific purposes. London: Macmillan.
Lynch, T. (1983). Study listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mackay, R. & Mountford, A. (Eds.). (1978). English for specific purposes. London:
Longman.
McDonough, J. (1984). ESP in perspective. London: Collins.
Robinson, P. (1980). ESP: English for specific purposes. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Robinson, P. (1991). ESP today: A practitioner's guide. London: Prentice Hall.
Robinson, P. C. (Ed.). (1988). Academic writing: Process and product (ELT Documents
129). London: Modern English Publications.
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Recommended Text Books
Fairfax, B. & Trzeciak, J.(1999). English for academic study series: Listening. London:
Prentice Hall.
Glendinning, E. H. & Holmstrm, B. (1992). Study reading. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hamp-Lyons, L. & Heasley, B. (1987). Study writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Lynch, T. & Anderson, K. (1992). Study speaking. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Lynch, T. (1983). Study listening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McGovern, D. (1994). English for academic study series: Reading. London: Prentice
Hall.

Northedge, A. (1990). The good study guide. Milton Keynes: The Open University
Press.
Rignall, M. & Furneaux, C.(2000). English for academic study series: Listening. London:
Prentice Hall.
Madden, C. G. & Rohlck, T. N. (1997). Discussion and interaction in the academic
community. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Smith, M. & Smith, G. (1988). A study skills handbook. Melbourne: Oxford University
Press.
Swales, J. M. & Feak, C. B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Swales, J. M. & Feak, C. B. (2000). English in today's research world. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Trzeciak, J. & Mackay, S. E. (1994). English for academic study series: Study skills for
academic writing. London: Prentice Hall.
Wallace M (1980). Study Skills In English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Waters, M., & Waters, A. (1995). Study tasks in English. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Weissberg, R. & Buker, S. (1990). Writing up research: Experimental research report
writing for students of English. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
White, R. & McGovern, D.(1994). English for academic study series: Writing. London:
Prentice Hall.
Williams, R. (1982). Panorama: An advanced course of English for study and
examinations. London: Longman.

Andy Gillett is Principal Lecturer in EAP in the School of Combined Studies at the
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK. He has spent most of the last 25 years
teaching ESP in private language schools, State Colleges and Universities both in
the UK and abroad. He is now mainly involved in organising, planning and teaching
EAP courses to students taking a wide range of courses at the University of
Hertfordshire's campuses at Hatfield, north of London, UK.
Address: School of Combined Studies, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane,
Hatfield, Herts, AL10 9AB, UK.

Andy Gillett (1996). What is EAP? IATEFL ESP SIG Newsletter, 6, 17-23. (updated
August, 2000)
Bob Jordan wrote a follow up article to this in the next issue of the IATEFL ESP
SIG Newsletter. Click here to read it.