Critical Conversations with students of EAP: Issues and Reflections

This is a Students-as-Partners project leading to the creation of a Bloomsbury volume called, 'Critical Conversations with students of English for Academic Purposes: Issues and Reflections'. The co-editors are two Associate Professors of EAP, Michelle Evans (Language Centre, University of Leeds) and Susie Cowley-Haselden (University of Warwick).

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is often described as being student-focused or driven by student need, particularly the needs of students labelled as ‘international’. EAP practices in Higher Education do depend heavily on analyses of student needs, abilities, behaviours and cultures. The field endeavours to capture and understand student attitudes, beliefs or perceptions related to a wide variety of matters pertaining to academic language(s), literacies, learning and teaching practices and other HE issues. EAP scholarship and research pursuits closely investigate student responses to new or refined pedagogies and the trialling of educational interventions. These rely on numerous measures of knowledge and skill development, proficiency testing or other accounts of the student experience, in order to enhance aspects of student engagement or achievement. Other studies are motivated to collect, interpret and share how students negotiate their identities; or how features of student-practitioner relationships can provide insights into power, empowerment, legitimacy and decision-making within curriculum design and classroom practices.