010039 Teaching English for Academic Purposes

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular semester, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Subject level:

Postgraduate

Handbook description

This subject is designed for students who aim to teach programs that support students studying at tertiary level in English. This may include teaching in tertiary preparation courses, academic language support programs, or teaching other subject areas in English-medium universities where some or all students are non-native speakers of English. It is also relevant to teaching in senior secondary schools as a pathway to academic study. The subject takes account of the contexts of English for academic purposes (EAP) in Australia and internationally. The content addresses aspects from the nature of academic English, issues of program design and provision, modes of pedagogy, and practices in testing and assessment. Students engage with theories of language and learning as they have relevance to the context of teaching EAP. They apply theoretical knowledge in explorations of their own practice and that of others in the field.

Subject objectives/outcomes

At the end of this subject it is expect that the students will be able to:

1. recognise different positions in teaching English for academic purposes
2. analyse approaches to teaching English for academic purposes, including theoretical influences and proposed pedagogical practices
3. critique teaching practices in relation to theoretical models
4. develop a strong pedagogical framework for programming and teaching English for academic purposes to diverse groups of learners.

Contribution to course aims and graduate attributes

This subject contributes to the student¹s capacity to recognise and apply theoretical concepts and principles of teaching and learning English for academic purposes in professional practice in diverse educational contexts.

Teaching and learning strategies

Students will typically experience the learning in this subject through the following processes and/orcontentthat will be covered.

• Lectures
• Practical workshop tasks
• Discussions
• Readings

Content

PART 1: Theory and practice

Introduction: What is EAP?

Contexts for teaching EAP:

• TEAP in senior secondary school
• Tertiary preparation
• Tertiary support: in support centres / embedded in faculties

The industry: associations, institutions, journals, conferences, websites

A language for talking about texts and contexts: Familiarisation with some key terms (eg: genre, field, tenor, mode)

Generic and/or disciplinary-specific EAP:

• Academic discourse as abstract / technical ways of representing the world
• Disciplinary differences: in the language of the sciences, the social sciences and the humanities

Multimodality in teaching and learning:

• Body language in face-to-face teaching
• Meanings of images in academic texts
• TEAP online

Evaluation and stance in academic discourse: The important business of reviewing literature

PART 2: Practice and Theory

A practical focus on teaching and responding to student writing in EAP: modeling and jointly constructing feed-back or feed-forward

A practical focus on teaching reading in EAP: ‘Reading-to-Learn’

A practical focus on teaching spoken discourse in EAP: oral presentations

The subject will also provide opportunities to explore applications of, and to critique, theoretical knowledge in a range of contexts of relevance to students, eg:

• Undertaking a needs analysis within a disciplinary context
• Putting Reading-to-Learn into practice
• Putting a genre-based pedagogy into practice
• Mentoring students online
• Teaching with textbooks
• Teaching with online resources
• IELTS and issues for teaching; effective preparation for future study
• Exploring the multimodal nature of classrooms

Assessment

Assessment Item 1: Written Paper

Assessment Item 2: Written paper/portfolio

Minimum requirements

Students must pass both assignments to pass the subject

Recommended texts

The following texts are recommended as key source texts

Jordan, R.R. 1997. English for Academic Purposes: A guide and resource book for teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hood, S. 2010. Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

An additional set of readings will be available on UTSOnline (with purchase of hard copy set an option).