Pedagogies in English for Academic Purposes

Teaching and Learning in International Contexts

Carole MacDiarmid, Jennifer J. MacDonald, Carole MacDiarmid, J. J. MacDonald

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781350164826
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages

As the delivery of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) continues to expand internationally, so too must the literature available to support teaching. This volume showcases some of the research-informed work in this exciting and complex field, providing insights into EAP pedagogies employed in a diverse range of contexts. Drawing on the work of practitioners and practitioner-researchers, it responds to the repeated calls for a firmer link between theory, research and practice in language teaching, and provides a much-needed focus on pedagogy. From contexts where English is the principal dominant societal language or one of several official languages, to those where English-medium instruction (EMI) is common in higher education as an additional language for students and faculty, the chapters explore a range of geographical contexts, including Brazil, Canada, China, Norway, South Africa, Turkey, the UAE, the UK and the USA. Diversity is also represented in the range of types of EAP provision featured in this volume. Contributions focus on EAP for undergraduate and postgraduate students, from lower to advanced proficiency levels, before and during degree study, and in English for both general and specific academic purposes teaching, with discussion of consequences for on-going teacher education. Pedagogic responses and innovations to these varied contexts and needs are illustrated in the range of contributions, which provide insights into current practices in EAP globally.

1

Embracing Critical Multicultural Education through Research-Informed Practice in EAP Teaching

John McGaughey and Heejin Song

As part of Canadian university and college internationalization efforts, the number of international students has shown a rapid increase with 498,735 students studying at post-secondary institutions in 2019 (Canadian Bureau of International Education, 2020). This increasing demographic has contributed to Canada’s culturally and linguistically diverse higher education landscape and has led to concepts of multiculturalism and diversity being increasingly included in English for academic purposes (EAP) courses (see special issue on higher education in TESL Canada (Van Viegen et al., 2019)). Yet, this incorporation of multiculturalism and diversity is not without critique. Often the notion of multiculturalism as taught remains as tokenism and a symbolic construct, focusing on surface-level discussions of cultural diversity, for example, discussions centred around foods, holidays and celebrations (Apple, 2004; Bissoondath, 2002; Gérin-Lajoie, 2008; Kubota, 2015; McLaren, 2007; Nieto & Bode, 2011). In response to the critiques of teaching multiculturalism, and given the current social-political context seeing a resurgence of decolonizing social practices and social activism aimed at resisting systemic racism in Canada and around the world (e.g. Black Lives Matter; Idle No More; and Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) movements), this chapter showcases how a two-cycle action research project led to the creation of materials and lessons embracing critical multicultural education (Kubota, 2015; Nieto & Bode, 2011) and contributing to students’ development of critical intercultural communicative competence.

Theoretical Foundations

Byram’s (1997) intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is adopted in recognition as one of the key essential skills for English language learners (Alptekin, 2002; Byram et al., 2002; Guo & Jamal, 2007; Song, 2013a, 2013b). Byram emphasizes learners’ development of ICC in three dimensions: ‘knowledge’ of culture including surface culture (i.e. cultural symbols and products) and deep culture (i.e. beliefs and perspectives); skills of reflecting on, relating to and comparing other cultures; and attitudes towards other cultures (i.e. openness, inclusiveness). Despite the emphasis on reflexive skills and inclusive attitudes development, we contend that Byram’s framework can be complemented with more critically oriented theoretical lenses such as critical multicultural education to equip EAP students with essential skills to reflect on global issues and resist unjust matters.

Pedagogues in critical multicultural education (Grant & Sleeter, 2010; Nieto & Bode, 2011) and critical race theory (Dei, 1999; Kubota, 2015) argue that a superficial understanding of multiculturalism can lead to silencing critical discussions of discrimination and prejudices surrounding race, ethnicity, gender, class and sexual orientation. Critical multicultural education (Grant & Sleeter, 2010; May, 1999; Nieto & Bode, 2011) calls for students’ active participation in and practice of exercising democratic ideas and discussing topics of inequality and injustice. In this light, students are invited to examine the power relations in social reality and how structural discrimination is created and reproduced. Based on this critical approach to multicultural education, the discussion of issues of inequality and injustice should be actively incorporated in EAP curricula in a manner that unpacks and renders visible the unequal relations of power and the ideologies of diversity and difference.

Through the incorporation of these theoretical lenses, we focus on developing materials and pedagogical approaches that facilitate discussions of contested notions of power linked to diversity and systemic discrimination. We believe that such an approach will help develop students’ critical intercultural communicative competence along with the capacity to actively participate in their globalized educational communities and beyond.

Methodology

Teaching Context: EAP Courses and Students

The teaching and research context for this study is an EAP programme at a university in a large Canadian city. The programme is for international students who have met the academic qualifications for entrance into their undergraduate programmes but do not have a high-enough English proficiency score for direct admission. As an alternative admission pathway, these students are offered admission into the two-semester programme, and upon successful completion of the programme, they are directly admitted into their undergraduate programme the following year. The three EAP courses that make up the programme are non-credit-bearing content and language integrated learning (CLIL) courses consisting of a reading and writing course, a cross-disciplinary skills course and a listening and speaking course. This chapter focuses on our teaching experiences in the cross-disciplinary skills course and the reading and writing course.

The students in the programme are high academic achievers on the basis of their high school grades; however, their English proficiency, based on IELTS, ranges between 5.0 and 6.5 overall. Within the programme, in our experience, student proficiency tends to vary both within and across course sections. The students enrolled in the programme reflect many different nationalities; however, the majority of students are Chinese.

We have observed that our students often hold a liberal view of Canadian multiculturalism, a view where Canada is a nation free of racism and discrimination. Furthermore, through focus groups and conversations with former students we have also learned that they often feel unwilling or unprepared to engage in discussions of systemic racism and discrimination with their classmates. Recognizing this gap and the need to develop students’ ICC, we embarked on a two-year action research project.

Action Research

Our teaching practices were designed, analysed and reflected upon through the framework of educational action research advocated by Burns (2005, 2010) and Kemmis et al. (2014). Action research in education refers to research wherein educators examine their own practice in partnership with colleagues and/or learners to resolve tensions, improve teaching and make a positive change in their educational environment. Despite numerous types and variations of action research characterized by the purpose, context and social actors involved (see Burns, 2005; Kemmis et al., 2014; Song, 2019, for more information), the heart of action research is ‘the process of its systemic planning, action and reflection in a spiral and cyclical progression and its goal, that is, change, transformation and improvement of practice, whether it is for short-term or long-term or infinite’ (Song, 2019, p. 8).

The two-cycle action research project took place during two academic years. The first cycle took place during the 2017–2018 academic year while John and Heejin were teaching different sections of the cross-disciplinary skills course. The second cycle, which built upon the first cycle, took place during the 2018–2019 academic year while John was teaching a section of the reading and writing course and Heejin was teaching a different section of the cross-disciplinary skills course.

In the following, for each action research cycle, we detail our theoretically informed instructional design. Then, through a reflective narrative approach, we discuss how our students engaged with the materials and lessons and provide our observations of students’ outcomes on course assignments.

Action Research Cycle 1: The Canadian Culture and Identity Project

For the first action research cycle, our aim was to create and teach a unit on culture and identity where students would gain awareness of their culturally and linguistically diverse university community. As part of the unit, students engaged with two readings and a video to gain a theoretical understanding of culture and identity, understand why common Canadian stereotypes are inaccurate and learn why stereotyping creates a mistaken or incomplete picture of an individual or group from assigned resources (Adiche, 2009; Browne, 2008; Saunders, 2009). These materials were supplemented by in-class discussions and were intended to scaffold students’ upcoming research project that culminated in a presentation on Canadian culture. We believed that the students would use what they had learned in class when researching and creating presentations and show a somewhat accurate understanding of Canadian culture and cross-cultural understanding. However, with rare exception, this was not to be the case.

The students’ presentations had common themes mainly based on Canadian stereotypes such as Tim Hortons (a coffee shop franchise), maple syrup, hockey and igloos. Cultural diversity, if included, was based on Canada’s white colonial settlers and European immigrants and omitted the presence of people of colour, and more recent immigration trends were notably absent. Moreover, the dominant pattern in students’ presentations remained superficial by portraying Canada as a multicultural haven, exhibiting celebratory liberal multiculturalism and avoiding discussion of issues of unequal power relations between the culturally dominant and minoritized groups. This pattern reproduced a capitalist and neoliberal construction of the multicultural Canadian identity as a commodity, something that clients can consume, taste and experience through cultural products at prices ranging from two dollars (e.g. Tim Hortons’ coffee and donuts) to thousands (e.g. winter sports and cultural excursions to the North).

At the end of the term, we met on several occasions to debrief the first action research cycle. We discussed how we were both surprised and disappointed that what we had taught in class and the discussions that the students had did not seem to scaffold their research projects. Rather, their presentations were reflections of the very stereotypes that we were trying to reject through our teaching. Our discussions led us to realize that simply teaching our students about the concept of culture and how stereotyping creates an incomplete picture of a culture was not enough if we wanted students leave the course with an inclusive understanding of Canadian culture beyond the dominant groups. We felt that going forward, we needed to take a much more critical and direct approach where students would not only learn about how Canada is culturally and linguistically diverse but also know that not all people in Canada are treated fairly and equally due to systemic racism and discrimination. These reflections in turn greatly influenced our practices the following year, part of which became the second action research cycle.

Action Research Cycle 2: Taking a Critical Approach to Canadian Multiculturalism

Based on our reflections on the first action research cycle, we modified the instructional design and our action research expanded to two different EAP courses in the following year, to the reading and writing course and the cross-disciplinary skills course. Here, we detail and reflect on what we did in our courses where we sought to better align with critical approaches to multicultural education including anti-racism education and multicultural education for social justice (Dei, 1999; Grant & Sleeter, 2010; Kubota, 2015; Nieto & Bode, 2011) with an aim to develop students’ critical understanding of Canadian culture, diversity and equity.

John: Unpacking Canadian Multiculturalism in an EAP Reading and Writing Course

In the second year of the action research project, I began teaching in the reading and writing course. Based on our experiences in the first action research cycle, I embraced critical multicultural education as a theoretical lens when designing an overarching research project and when choosing academic readings in Fall term. I first provide an overview of the research project and the course readings and the n discuss how they led to students developing a more critical understanding of Canadian multiculturalism.

Research Project Overview

The main assignment of the course was a multi-step scaffolded research project which began early in the Fall semester and culminated with a final paper in the Winter semester. The research paper was framed with the research question: ‘What is the future of multiculturalism in Canada?’ The different steps of the research project reflected the different academic genres that students would learn throughout the year:

1. Proposal

2. Annotated bibliography

3. Literature review

4. Argumentative essay (introduction and body section only)

5. Argumentative essay (final draft)

Each step of the research project was aimed to scaffold the following steps in the project. Students were also permitted to improve what they had written in one step and incorporate that writing in later steps. To complete the different steps of the research paper, the students were required to incorporate arguments from four requisite course readings and their own independent research.

Requisite Course Texts

In the Fall semester, students were required to intensively read four texts that reflected different genres and perspective...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Notes on Contributors
• Series Editors’ Foreword
• Foreword Ursula Wingate
• Introduction
• 1 Embracing Critical Multicultural Education through Research-Informed Practice in EAP Teaching
• 2 Addressing Literacy Brokering in the EAP Classroom
• 3 Moving from Form to Function: Leveraging SFL Metalanguage to Illuminate Features and Functions of Texts in First-Year University EAP
• 4 EAP Pedagogies for Doctoral Students in Professional Fields
• 5 Using Developmental Teaching to Promote Critical EAP in an Academic Writing Course in English
• 6 Teaching English for Academic Purposes in Teacher Education: Examples from South Africa
• 7 Pedagogical Approaches in EGAP Coupled with CBI in an EMI Context
• 8 Academic Teachers’ Perceptions of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) Programme with EAP Teachers
• 9 ESAP-in-EGAP: Implementing Sydney School Genre Pedagogy in Gulf Higher Education
• 10 EAP Teachers Working in, with and through the Creative Arts: An Exploration
• 11 Integrating a Signature Pedagogy into a Pre-sessional: Impact on Pedagogy in ESAP
• Afterword
• References
• Index
• Copyright