139 / 2018-06-22 22:29:04

Continuity and Change: A College English Teacher’s Journey into EAP

college English teacher, transition from EGP to EAP, teacher research, teacher as curriculum maker

全体主题 > ESP 教师发展

Since the introduction of ESP and EAP courses into College English curriculum, how teachers make the transition from EGP to ESP/EAP has become a prominent theme of the reform discourse. Drawing on in-depth interviews and classroom observations, this paper presents a teacher’s initiatives to understand and enact EAP to highlight the potential issues in EAP teacher development and the potential ways to respond to the challenges so as to offer insights for teachers who are undergoing or planning transition into teaching EAP.
Analysis of data reveals that transition from EGP to EAP involves both continuity and change. On the one hand, teacher’s expertise in EGP constitutes the reservoir of teaching EAP. On the other hand, EAP requires teacher to be more responsive to students’ needs of language use in academic or professional contexts, and correspondingly design content-and-language integrated activities of learning, both of which foreground teacher’s ability of researching curriculum and identity as curriculum maker. Implications are college English teachers need to develop expertise to redo and undo the past, and explore options that place both content and academic communication development at the heart of teaching and learning. Teacher research is a guarantee for such exploratory practice and the transition into EAP.