Observing exam marking sessions to understand what our teach- ing team defines as successful writing

• What do you think the role of task-based learning is in your ESL instruction?

3.Beliefs about language learning

• What do you think are the best ways to learn a language?

• What do your learners believe about language learning?

• What kinds of learning strategies do you encourage in your learners?

4.Experiences as a learner

• How have your experiences as a language learner influenced your ESL teaching?

• How did the approach of your instructor(s) contribute to or limit your language learning?

5.Beliefs about our EAP program

• How would you characterize our successes as an EAP program?

• To what extent is/can your teaching (be) based on the needs of each individual class of learners from semester to semester?

6.Ask yourself:

• What are my assumptions and beliefs about teaching and learning a language?

• Do my beliefs about language learning coincide with what the literature tells us about language learning?

• Do my beliefs correspond to those of my employer, colleagues or funder?

• To what extent do I apply these beliefs in my daily teaching?

Curriculum planning in our context

III. Observing exam marking sessions to understand what our teach-

was intended to mediate some conflict among a group regarding passing levels of papers. In fact, the conversation which ensued and was recorded by note-taking, provided a rich insight into the teaching team’s opinions, preferences, and biases about the standard of English proficiency which should be demonstrated by an EAP student in their final exam, enabling them to enter mainstream university programs. It demonstrated there was an overall lack of consensus about these issues and a real lack of any shared understanding in our program about what defined student success. This, while somewhat disheartening, provided a greater sense of motivation to the curriculum team that such a shared understanding needed to be built and would require significant support and change in mindset among most members of the teaching team.

Pedagogical Priorities for a Contemporary EAP Classroom While there is no prescribed best methodological approach to teaching EAP, there can be little doubt that “skills based teaching is at the core of EAP instruction” (Newton et al., 2018, p. 1). After completing EAP, students will have to be ready to use English to achieve their academic goals. At the same time, knowledge both declarative and procedural of grammar and vocabulary cannot be overlooked if students are to be able to adapt to the complex setting of academia. Two approaches identified by Newton et al. (2018) as offering a seamless integration of skills and language knowledge are task-based language teaching and content-based instruction. Both of these approaches offer the added benefit of bridging students’ language towards their academic studies and emphasizing the integration of authentic materials which may be motivating to learners and offer a more realistic preparation for what is to come. In a context where subject-matter experts may not be part of the instructional team delivering content-based instruction, TBLT may offer the most effective approach in an EAP context. Defined by Bygate, Norris, and Van den Branden (2013) as, “an approach to pedagogy in which communication tasks are fundamental to language learning” (p. 1), TBLT offers learners a chance to develop language competencies while gradually introducing them to the rigourous tasks of an undergraduate setting (Bygate et al., 2013).

Each organization will determine its own pedagogical priorities and principles, but what remains a critical consideration is how to communi- cate that to teachers and students, as well as how to integrate those principles flexibly into a curriculum document while allowing for some maneu- verability by teachers within that construct. Building a shared understanding of how languages are learned, and, what Ellis (2005) describes as what the optimal instructed language learning environment looks like, are critical steps to building a curriculum plan which will undergo a similar and recognizable process as it is transformed into the curriculum as lived.

References

Basturkmen, H. (2010).Developing courses in English for specific purposes. Lon- don, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230290518.

Bygate, M., Norris, J., & Van den Branden, K. (2013). Task-based language teaching. In C. Chapelle (Ed.),The encyclopedia of applied linguistics. Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell.

Ellis, R. (2005). Principles of instructed second language acquisition.System, 2, 209–224.

Fox, J., Cheng, L., Berman, R., Song, X., & Myles, J. (2006). Costs and benefits:

English for academic purposes instruction in Canadian universities. Carleton papers in applied linguistics.

Guardado, M., & Light, J. (2018). Innovation in EAP programmes: Shifting from teaching to learning in curriculum design. In L. T. Wong & W. L. Wong (Eds.),Teaching and learning English for academic purposes: Current research and practices (pp. 143–160). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Kaskens, A., Light, J., & Peters, C. (2012).Moving professional learning to class- room practice: An instructor handbook. Toronto, ON: Toronto Catholic Dis- trict School Board (TCDSB). Retrieved from http://wiki.settlementatwork.

org/w/uploads/Instructor_Handbook.pdf.

McDonough, K., Neumann, H., & Hubert-Smith, N. (2018). How accurately do English for academic purposes students use academic word list words?BC TEAL Journal, 3(1), 77–89.

Nation, I. S. P., & Macalister, J. (2010).Language curriculum design. New York, NY: Routledge.

Newton, J., Ferris, D. R., Goh, C. M., Grabe, W., Stoller, F., & Vandergrift, L. (2018). Teaching English to second language learners in academic contexts:

Reading, writing, listening, and speaking. New York, NY: Routledge.

Formatting Curriculum Content: Program Learning Goals Realized

Abstract Formatting Curriculum Content explores the rationale for an outcomes-based approach to EAP curriculum and most crucially describes, in detail, all of the aspects that need to be considered for inclusion in the document to promote optimal learning opportunities for students. The chapter examines how an outcomes-based curriculum reflects a learner centred approach, provides flexibility for instructors, and allows an EAP program to maintain ‘standards’ for the language proficiency of successful learners while focusing on the learning which actually takes place.

Furthermore, through numerous examples provided, the authors demonstrate how pedagogical principles can be incorporated into the curriculum documents without limiting the options for teachers to be innovative and meet the needs of the students who present.

Keywords Outcomes-based education·Performance conditions· Performance indicators·Tasks·Curriculum-as-planned

M. Guardado and J. Light,Curriculum Development in English for Academic Purposes,

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47468-3_4

Questions to ask about your context

• What does our curriculum describe? Is the curriculum a plan? Is it a description of what is actually taught? Does it describe what is learned?

• What does it mean when a student passes one of our courses? What does a pass in a certain class mean in terms of their language proficiency and readiness for the next step in the learning pathway?

• Do the instructors and administrators in our program share an understanding of the language proficiency attained by students passing through the various levels in our program?

• Is this understanding shared by other university stakeholders?

• How do our language learning outcomes meet the needs of our learners for their future studies?

• How does our curriculum address both skills such as reading and writing, as well as language items including grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary?

• What steps does our program take to ensure that summative assess- ments reflect the learning which is described in the curriculum and taking place in the classroom?

In the process of getting to grips with the context within which an EAP program functions, as well as developing and articulating a set of philo- sophical principles to guide curriculum and broader program manage- ment, an emphasis on understanding what learners are able to do at the end of the course becomes paramount in the content of the EAP curriculum plan. Rather than a syllabus which may describe what will be taught during an EAP course, an outcomes-based curriculum seeks to describe what a learner who is successful in passing the course is able to do. Stu- dents who are participating in an EAP context are required to be able to function successfully in a challenging language milieu upon completion of their language preparation courses. Their ability to function in this setting will be defined by other stakeholders in terms of their communicative competence, by what they can do with the language rather than what they know about it. Their classmates, professors, support staff, teaching assis- tants among others will pay little attention to their EAP grades, and will only consider their ability to demonstrate linguistic, strategic, academic, and intercultural competence. Developing these skills must be the focus of an EAP curriculum.

Understanding Outcomes in EAP Curriculum

This chapter will outline a highly effective outcomes-based approach to curriculum development and design. The structure for designing an outcomes-based curriculum will be demonstrated, which will cover aspects including the hierarchy of general learning outcomes, performance conditions, specific learning outcomes, performance indicators, and sample tasks. This hierarchy is represented in Fig.4.1.

General Learning Outcomes

The goal of the general outcomes is to ensure that learners and other external partners and stakeholders can understand the broad goals of the course. Written in jargon-free language, these descriptors precisely

Fig. 4.1 The hierarchy of general learning outcomes, performance conditions, specific learning outcomes, performance indicators, and sample tasks

describe the activities that students who successfully complete the course will be able to undertake in the real world beyond the language classroom. The measure of a well-written general learning outcome (GLO) is that anyone, not just those with specialized insider knowledge of linguistics or second language pedagogy, should be easily able to understand these goal statements.

For example, consider the notion of writing in a second language.

Whereas an applied linguist or EAP instructor may recognize the intri- cate sub-functions involved in constructing a short answer question in an exam, including a strong topic sentence, appropriate citation, clear organization of ideas, use of supporting details, these are not likely to be imme- diately accessible to either students or professors in other departments, such as History or Physics. Students may not have a clear expectation of what constitutes a strong short answer question response, while academic professors merely know one when they see one without ever having deconstructed why this may be the case. For this reason, articulation of outcomes recognizable to non-experts ensures that a clear understanding of what students who have passed a particular EAP course may be able to do among the broader community of stakeholders.

Write a succinct and effective short answer question in an exam-setting.

Moreover, the inclusion of GLOs connected to those tasks that are most likely to be encountered in a ‘real’ academic classroom ensures that curriculum design remains strongly rooted to the students’ real needs, a critical element of a task-based approach. Avoiding linguistic jargon in the writing of GLOs reinforces the likelihood that these outcomes will maintain the flavour of the ‘real’ world and build connections between the EAP classroom and the mainstream undergraduate classroom.

Take a look at the following examples of effective EAP GLOs drawn from a variety of levels, across all four skill areas, writing, reading, listening, and speaking. As you review each GLO, consider:

• Does this GLO represent an academic undertaking your EAP students could realistically expect to encounter in their mainstream academic studies?

• Has the GLO been written without jargon or unnecessary compli- cation?

• Would an academic colleague in another department understand the intent or goal of the outcome?

• Is the language of the GLO accessible to a learner?

Course Level: EAP (CEFR equivalent A2+)¹ Skill area: Writing

General Learning Outcomes—Learners will be able to:

• Describe information from formatted texts

• Write a personal response to an academic text

• Reflect on a topic and participate in an online forum.

Course Level: EAP (CEFR equivalent B1)−

Skill area: Speaking

General Learning Outcomes—Learners will be able to:

• Effectively prepare for and deliver short academic presentations using some visual aids (e.g., PowerPoint, poster) and demonstrate appropriate presentation delivery skills

• Facilitate and participate in seminar discussions

• Express ideas somewhat clearly during interactions in an academic setting.

Course Level: EAP (CEFR equivalent B2) Skill area: Listening

General Learning Outcomes Learners will be able to

• Analyze academic lectures and broadcasts in order to take notes and complete academic tasks

• Actively participate in seminar discussions.

Course Level: EAP (CEFR equivalent C1) Skill area: Reading

General Learning Outcomes—Learners will be able to:

1Based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).

• Analyze and assess the content of academic texts

• Analyze and evaluate the organizational structure of academic texts

• Gather relevant information from more than one written source to complete specific academic tasks (e.g., critique, poster).

In each case, across the different levels of EAP courses offered and across all skills, the curriculum plan outlines precise statements of what students who pass the course will be able to do with their language. The language of the GLOs is clear and accessible to those who are not linguists and sets the course for teachers and students alike. Clearly written GLOs tell all stakeholders, this is where we are going and what completing this course means.

When undertaking to plan for a task-based EAP curriculum, it can at times seem that the curriculum plan is becoming repetitive. GLOs are intended to be general statements that act as course guides. When attempting to delineate across scales of language proficiency such as the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and still describe EAP as a series of tasks, very similar GLOs may seem to keep appearing in the curriculum. In part, this is because the end goals of every EAP student, regardless of level, tend to overlap. Thus, while the GLO of an A2 class may be towrite a short paragraph explaining a straightforward aca- demic relationship such as cause and effect, the same concept may reappear in the B1 curriculum in the GLO,write an effective cause and effect essay.

It can be challenging for stakeholders, learners, and teachers to understand what it means to achieve the A2 level outcome in comparison with the B1 level outcome. A well-written curriculum plan offers the solution, in the form of performance conditions.

Performance Conditions

Obviously, it is necessary to be able to delineate the level of performance that is expected for these GLOs more concretely. For this reason, GLOs are followed in the curriculum document by a description ofperformance conditions.These performance conditions allow for the description of the level of complexity of each item. It is clear that at different levels of English language learning the tasks completed may be described as being very similar. Yet, there are significant descriptors that help build an understanding of a learner’s distinct language proficiency, such as the level of

complexity and formality of a text, the amount of language produced or understood, and the degree of support allowed for task completion.

Take a look at the following examples of EAP performance conditions developed for a variety of levels, across all four course levels, for one skill area, writing.

As you review each descriptor for performance conditions, consider:

• How specific does the language of the performance conditions need to be?

• Are these performance conditions specific enough?

• Do they align with your own institution’s understanding of language and task complexity?

• In what ways would these performance conditions help in the development of course assignments and exams?

• How can teachers and programs adjust to be inclusive of multi-level classes and/or ranges of language proficiency across different skill areas?

Course Level: EAP (CEFR equivalent A2+) Skill area: Writing

Performance Conditions

• Text is factual with mainly explicit meaning

• Text length is under 500 words

• Topics are mostly academically focused, concrete, factual and per- sonally or globally relevant

• Formatted texts are moderately complex, and may include forms, tables, schedules, graphs and maps

• Input language is mostly concrete, uses some academic language, and consists of high frequency words that are within the top 3000 words.

Course Level: EAP (CEFR equivalent B1−) Skill area: Writing

Performance Conditions

• Topics are concrete, factual and academic, and may be unfamiliar

• Language, style and register are formal and academic

• Essays require at least 4 paragraphs

• A maximum of two pieces of research are provided/assigned for essay writing. A maximum of two pieces of research are used in the essay

• If essays are completed under timed conditions, the time allowed is 50 minutes

• Tasks are completed independently without extensive guid- ance/external support (e.g., dictionaries, internet).

Course Level: EAP (CEFR equivalent B2−) Skill area: Writing

Performance Conditions

• Topics are concrete, factual, academic, and may be unfamiliar

• Language, style and register are formal and academic

• Topics reflect characteristics of argument-style discourse, including supporting arguments and opposing arguments and refutations

• Essays require at least 5 paragraphs

• At least 1 piece of research is provided/assigned for essay writing. A maximum of two pieces of research are used in the essay

• If essays are completed under timed conditions, the time allowed is 60 minutes

• Tasks are completed independently without extensive guid- ance/external support (e.g., dictionaries, internet).

Course Level: EAP (CEFR equivalent C1) Skill area: Writing

Performance Conditions

• Topics may be concrete or abstract, academic, and related to the student’s proposed field of study

• Academic papers are 2–3 pages in length

• Papers are academic in organization and register, and use Vancou- ver/APA style citation

• Vocabulary used is academic, may be abstract and employs some specialized terminolog

• Writing tasks are completed without external support (e.g., no dictionaries, Internet in test conditions)

• Tasks demonstrate student has utilized the writing process (outlin- ing, drafting, editing, revising).

The inclusion of performance conditions into the curriculum plan allows for a much more nuanced understanding of how the different course levels of a program fit together. This approach allows for tasks to remain at the centre of the curriculum plan by elaborating the level of task complexity that is expected. A later description of how language accuracy is considered in the curriculum plan allows for the balance which appears to occur between task complexity and accuracy (Skehan & Foster,2012).

Specific Learning Outcomes

In order to support instructors in terms of lesson planning and assessment it is necessary to drill down into these two sets of descriptors to determine more specific outcomes and the micro-skills involved in achieving these goals. For this purpose, we explain how a set of outcomes statements referred to asspecific learning outcomes (SLOs) can be used. These are more technical and use language that is not only more specific but has more technical aspects included that relate to knowledge of teaching and learning a second language. These statements allow teachers to plan specific tasks to build skills, and later on to assess the development and mastery of those skills in order to achieve the broader communication goals of the GLOs.

Making the connection between GLOs and SLOs.

The GLOs of a curriculum should entirely inform the SLOs. The GLOs describe what a student needs to be able to do with the language upon completion of the course. The SLOs represent how the teacher will create a course of instruction to support them in getting there.

Take a look at the following examples of EAP GLOs and SLOs pre- sented together.

As you review each descriptor of performance condition, consider:

• Are the connections between the GLOs and SLOs reasonable?

• Do the SLOs achieve a balance between breadth and specificity?

• Do the SLOs capture the essential components of the GLO statements?

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