All Things EAP - Episode 1

[00:00:00] Laura Richards: Hi, and welcome to All Things EAP, a podcast produced by practitioners across the globe and hosted by BALEAP. It provides a fun and friendly look at every aspect of EAP, helping you keep up with the latest developments and building an inclusive and equitable community around the world. Following the BALEAP, we hope to be collaborative, professional, developmental, and inclusive.  Each episode, we'll dive into an aspect of EAP with discussions, reflections, and insights from practitioners in different contexts.  Whoever  and wherever you are,  we hope you find this podcast informative and insightful.


[00:00:48] Laura Richards: Hello, thank you for joining us for the very first episode of the brand new BALEAP podcast. I'm Laura Richards, an EAP lecturer at the University of Leeds. And I'm part of the production team, which is made up of a few different members of the BALEAP community from around the world.  I'm so excited to be able to share this podcast with you, and we've been working away on bringing this to you for a little while now, so we hope that you enjoy this first episode, and we really look forward to hearing your comments and feedback. Before we dive into the main discussion for this episode, I wanted to give you just a little idea of what you can expect from the podcast. Our aim has been to create a friendly and informal space to hear views and experiences from the global EAP community, particularly those who might not find it as easy to have their voices heard. We wanted to create a platform to discuss the issues and ideas that matter most to us as a community of practice, and to connect us no matter where or how we're involved in EAP. From practitioners, just starting out in their EAP careers to seasoned pros and professors, everyone is welcome. The topics we plan to cover in this first series are wide ranging, and promote evidence based practice, tackling contemporary issues and challenging conventional wisdom to keep pushing the boundaries of EAP.  But we also want ideas from you, the listeners, for what you'd like to hear in the podcast. At the end of this episode, I'll give you details of how you can get in touch to share your comments, feedback, and suggestions. A few weeks ago, I chatted to my fellow production team members, Sanchia and Carrie about our routes into EAP and where we think the discipline's going. It was wonderful chatting to them both, and they had some really great takes on what it's like to be an EAP practitioner in different contexts, coming from less traditional backgrounds. Over the next few episodes of the podcast. You'll get to hear from the rest of the production team, as well as other members of the BALEAP community, who feel they have a topic they'd like to explore.  If you have an idea for an episode or a topic you'd like us to cover, please get in touch through email or social media. All the details will be at the end of this episode.  Without further ado, onto our first discussion. I loved chatting to Sanchia and Carrie about these topics, and I really hope you enjoy listening too

Feature discussion

[00:03:15] Laura Richards: Hi, Sanchia. Hi, Carrie. 

[00:03:19] Sanchia Rodrigues: Hi. 

[00:03:20] Carrie Qian: Hi. 

[00:03:21] Laura Richards: Where are you joining us from today on the podcast? 

[00:03:24] Sanchia Rodrigues: I'm located in miserable Coventry. It's the weather's really terrible here. We're smack bang in the middle of England in the UK. 

[00:03:32] Laura Richards: How about you, Carrie? 

[00:03:33] Carrie Qian: I'm here in Suzhou, China. And the weather is really lovely today.

[00:03:39] Laura Richards: Oh, I think you win . I'm on the campus at Leeds University where I'm a lecturer in EAP. Over to you. Can you tell me a little bit about where you are an EAP practitioner? 

[00:03:51] Sanchia Rodrigues: So I work at the University of Warwick, and I teach EAP here full time, but I'm also a PhD student at University College London, which is also in the UK.

[00:04:01] Laura Richards: Great, thanks. Carrie? 

[00:04:03] Carrie Qian: I teach EAP and intercultural communication at XJTLU, Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University, which is a transnational education university between a top tier Chinese university, which is Xi'an Jiaotong University and the University of Liverpool. 

[00:04:24] Laura Richards: I'm joining you here from Leeds and I've been here for what is almost exactly 10 years. Something that I talk about with my colleagues quite a lot is when you explain to other people what you do for a living, it can be a bit tricky. So I want to ask you, when someone asks you, what do you do for a living, how do you explain it to them? 

[00:04:42] Carrie Qian: That's really a good question. I sometimes just explain myself as an English teacher, which is more accessible for all different people. I remember when I attended a conference recently in Thailand, and when I introduced myself as an EAP teacher, a lot of other educators from all the different disciplines were super confused.
What? Oh, you're teaching like employment assistance, something like that. And then I will further on, no, I teach English, but just more academically focused.

[00:05:19] Sanchia Rodrigues: Oh, I totally agree with you. I think I found my explanation getting longer, the longer I work in EAP. And now I say that I work at the university of Warwick primarily with, pre undergraduate students in maths and computer science. And I teach them English for academic purposes, which means in general, how academic communication works at our university and some aspects of how it works, in the wider context of UK higher education, and I think one of the reasons the definition has gotten so much longer is the more I work in this field, the more I started to question what 'academicness' actually is, what the purposes are, and even what English is and isn't. I'm so not sure, Laura, if your answer is shorter and sweeter than that.

[00:06:05] Laura Richards: I think it very much depends on who I'm talking to. Because when I talk to my parents, I still have to say, I teach English, because they don't understand how, for example, teaching language might be different to teaching literature, and they definitely don't understand the concept of English as an academic, discipline the way that we teach it.
But I want to go back to something you said, Carrie, which is really interesting. You said that sometimes you say you're just an English teacher. Why is the 'just' there?

[00:06:34] Carrie Qian: And as you said, it depends on the person that I am talking to. So I think as for the general public, like people who are not involved in the field of education, then the explanation of 'just' being an English teacher might be the simplest for them to understand. 

[00:06:53] Laura Richards: I understand that. I think I see it slightly differently because for me, when I think about just being an English teacher, that's what I think of what I did before I was an EAP lecturer, an EAP practitioner, because now I think of what I do as being a lot more complex, wide ranging and diverse. So that'being an English teacher might be ng the difficulty in explaining what we do to our, our friends, our family, people that we just meet on the streets. Not like we tell them that we're an EAP lecturer, that would be weird, but someone asks you, you're sat on the train, as I frequently am, and someone says, Oh, what do you do for a living? And you try and explain. But I think it's also what makes it really interesting. And I think this is one of the things that we really want to explore in the podcast, is all these different dimensions of what it means to be an EAP practitioner. 

The next question that I want to put to you, what do we as practitioners think of when we think of EAP? And I think this is a great question that we keep coming back to, but one that was raised at the BALEAP Conference last year, where the title was, 'Caution! EAP under deconstruction'. There was lots of talk about, as there often is, but more specifically what we define EAP to be and who we are as practitioners.

[00:08:07] Sanchia Rodrigues: Yeah, I love that question so much and what I was reflecting on it while you were speaking, I think one of the key elements of any definition is who we work with.

So I'm thinking back to my various experiences in EAP and they've all really been defined by The people that I was working with to try and help or, working alongside who had commissioned the course. Whether that's pre sessional students in the UK, undergraduate students when I was working overseas in different disciplines, and equally high school students, in one country that I worked in.

I think there's some disagreement about whether or not high school counts as EAP, but I think I see a lot in common. With that context and what I do now, which is at a university, even though it might be referred to by different names. So I think that's maybe a running theme is that there are a lot of, areas or industries or jobs that have a lot in common with what I think of as EAP, but maybe don't necessarily have the same name.

[00:09:09] Laura Richards: Okay. So you mentioned that you worked with high school students. What was the context there where you were working with those students? 

[00:09:16] Sanchia Rodrigues: So that was a high school in Italy. And I was teaching the, let's say the English aspect of the IGCSE maths course. Maths? Yeah, maths. The classes and the exams were all, in English.
And the students, That was different for them. The majority of their schooling was in Italian. And so they would come to me for the kind of, let's say, language focused elements of their teaching. And they also had a math specialist teacher who would focus on the content. 

[00:09:46] Laura Richards: What was your experience of teaching maths in any language or in any context prior to this role with the students in Italy?
To be honest, it was right up my street because that was, that is my academic background. My first degree was in maths. And so I think once I realized that, EAP teaching could be specialized to a certain discipline, I felt really at home there. And I felt like I could bring a lot from my kind of background. Initial knowledge of, or initial study in maths and then my subsequent, study and experience in EAP. 

Okay, great. Carrie, so I guess I have a similar question for you. Sanchia has mentioned how she, meandered- as many of us do- into EAP. What was your route into EAP? 

[00:10:32] Carrie Qian: I used to teach English for general purpose. And before working as an English teacher, I used to work as a broadcast journalist. Just like a neighbouring profession. But I totally agree with what Sanchia said. 

There are a lot of transferable skills I've learned from being a journalist. And I think these skills can be very conducive to being a teacher. For instance, how to synthesize the information you've learned from all sorts of different sources. How to validate the different information you receive. Or how to try to question the information you receive critically, how to communicate with people effectively, and how to build rapport with your students.

As I was talking to Sanchia before you joined the meeting, working as a journalist means you have to build rapport with your students quickly and effectively with a lot of strangers, with all of the people you interview. When people don't trust you, they are not willing to share their stories. And this is something that can be transferred to being a teacher. Whenever I receive a new group of students, I would always try to build rapport to win their trust. 

[00:11:50] Laura Richards: I think that's really interesting and I think It's great to speak to two practitioners from such diverse backgrounds, because sometimes I feel like, maybe I'm, more in the majority because I've come at this through, English language teaching, in China, in my case, and I never really did anything else.

So I went from university, had some part time jobs, went to work in China as a graduate, and then came back to the UK, taught general English for a little bit, and then got an EAP job quite quickly afterwards. And so I've not taken, that kind of, sideways approach. And I wonder if we think that this is, something that has changed. So I don't know over your experience of the last kind of four or five years of being an EAP practitioner in your context, have you noticed a change in the background of the new practitioners that are coming in?

[00:12:40] Sanchia Rodrigues: That's a great question. I'm not sure that I, our team is really small, and so I'm not sure that I have a kind of overview there. But comparing it with. Previous work that I did in English as a foreign language, similar to you, Carrie. I think in that kind of domain of teaching, it was really normal for people to be career changers and to come to teach English as a foreign language later in life, I think it was quite rare to meet a sort of career EFL teacher who had studied, let's say linguistics at undergraduate level and had kept to that all the way through. But then I think in EAP in the team that I work in, there are quite a lot of diverse experiences often informed by, working elsewhere in places other than the UK and academic environments that are not similar to UK universities, and having that interest in how, the idea of what counts as academic and what counts as good communication can change. And I think that kind of awareness of how different it can be, the diversity in linguistic landscapes and backgrounds and repertoires around the world, I think that really informs, at least our practice. I don't know if I can speak on behalf of the people that I work with. 

[00:13:50] Laura Richards: No, I think it's a really good point. And I also think it's nice that you mentioned that your team is quite small because I come from what I think is a pretty big team. And so obviously the bigger the team, usually the more diverse the backgrounds, but Carrie, I was wondering what the situation is at XJTLU, and, if you have any kind of understanding of what the situation is and the kind of experience of practitioners more generally in China.

[00:14:12] Carrie Qian: We have a very big team of EAP teaching staff, which is still constantly growing. And I have to say our EAP practitioners do have very diverse backgrounds. And as far as I know, I've learned that some of my colleagues have educational background in like laws or business or marketing, or even something similar to what Sanchia mentioned, more related to stems. Yeah, so this is really diverse.

[00:14:45] Laura Richards: I think that's, I think that's really, it's really nice to hear, because it does bring so many different perspectives. And the point you made about understanding different forms of communication, Sanchia, and understanding or bringing a different perspective on how people can communicate successfully in different contexts and settings is really crucial to what we do.

And I think it's something that, We hope we can explore more in the podcast and give a platform to some of these more diverse voices. 
this brings us onto to another question I have, which is, are we diverse? I'm going to come to you, Sanchia, first, because I can see that you're smiling. And I know that you have something to say on this.

[00:15:19] Sanchia Rodrigues: I have strong opinions on this and they're informed by my own experience, which is that In many of the institutions that I've worked in, and I'm not talking about the UK now specifically, but let's say some of the other countries that I've worked in, it has been part of my job to even have to convince people that A, I'm a competent English speaker and B, that I'm able to teach, and that's because the way that I look doesn't fit, some people's expectations of let's say a native English speaker. 
 
It's a phrase that I really disagree with but I think a phrase that's very much in the zeitgeist, a lot of people have a preconception that person exists and of what that person should look and sound like.

[00:16:00] Laura Richards: When you say people have that preconceived notion, are you talking about outside of the UK or outside of, I guess what Kachru would say, the inner circle countries or elsewhere, because I think it's really de rigueur to reject, the term, native speaker at the moment in the UK. It's something that, doesn't appear as often. And if it is, it's in a very kind of, tricky context that it gets mentioned. 

[00:16:22] Sanchia Rodrigues: I love that is your experience and I hope that becomes the norm, but it hasn't been for me, at least in the way that people speak to me or speak about me, in my presence. It, I mean in all three of, The circles, if we use that model, I've experienced some element of having to justify why I'm in the room or why I'm good at my job, and that's not the reason I'm not naming specific locations is I don't think it's the fault of any particular, demographic or country, or I think it's a global problem. And one that, people continue to experience every day. 

[00:16:55] Laura Richards: I'm really interested to hear what you think about this, Carrie, because, Coming from what would have been considered an outer circle country, but I guess now is much more expanding, but, in, in Kachru terms, how do you feel about the distinction between native speaker
and -I say this in air quotes because I too disagree with this concept, but, native speaker and competent language teacher whose first language is not necessarily English? 

[00:17:19] Carrie Qian: Yeah, so as a person whose first language is not English, I have to say, yes, when I am applying for, universities overseas, I do have a disadvantage. And also when it comes to teaching students, I can sometimes have the feeling that the students would also assume that if you're not a non native speaker, maybe, you are not a very competent teacher. Yeah, that's the assumption that some of the learners might hold. 

[00:17:55] Laura Richards: And has this changed for you as you've, progressed through your career so far? I can definitely understand how that might have been the situation, or you might have been more sensitive to this when you were a novice teacher. But how do you feel now? Do you think it's the same kind of level of assumption that comes from students? 

[00:18:12] Carrie Qian: Yes. Yeah, this is something I've observed and in my teaching practice career, but for me I think I am very confident to evidence my students that I am a competent teacher because the teaching skills I evidenced via how you manage your classroom, how you help students improve their English language competency via different dimensions.

[00:18:46] Sanchia Rodrigues: Yeah, I think that's a really good point and something that I'm really looking forward to about this podcast I think something that you mentioned there Carrie as well about feeling more confident and feeling more justified and knowing that your methods work and that you are a skilled practitioner. I think that's something that EAP has really helped me with. Because when I was a novice teacher, I spent most of my time trying to prove that I was a "native speaker". And now my perspective on that has changed so much. Because I have that grounding in. the literature, I'm much more confident in my practice and I feel able to share the knowledge that I've gained on language, even though language is not always seen as an area of knowledge, within the university. So I think that says a lot about, the importance of kind of practice and expertise and building up your knowledge of your own discipline. 

[00:19:36] Carrie Qian: And based on what you just said, I think as an educator, as a teacher, we ourselves should also develop our intercultural competence because we might have a lot of international students and also even our students are from the same country, they might have different cultural backgrounds and we should completely respect students different identities. And despite the fact that as a non native English speaker I face a lot of challenges or some doubts from employers or from students. I'm not alluding to my students or my employer because we are very open minded, okay? But, what I'm trying to say is there are also a lot of advantages that we have. For instance, we can be more empathetic. We know the challenges that these learners might go through. And we can also be good modelers. We can model how to use the language ourselves. And we can share our own language learning experience from an autographical perspective to teach students, to share our language learning stories with them.

[00:20:44] Laura Richards: Thanks, Carrie. That's a really nice point. And I like the positivity that you're bringing to something that can be quite a difficult topic to discuss. So it makes me think, that perhaps another way of legitimizing how we feel as practitioners and our own expertise is through qualifications. When you were a novice practitioner, do you feel like perhaps if you'd had any, because I know that neither of you have specific EAP qualifications, just to clarify, would you have felt that if you had any, a specific EAP qualification, you, it might have validated your, practice and made you feel a bit more confident in what you were doing and how you're presented to learners?

[00:21:21] Carrie Qian: I don't really have any qualifications like closely related to teaching EAP. I have to say I gained a lot of my teaching confidence via constant in- service teaching training. I Been to a lot of institutional symposiums or a lot of, departmental coops, and I've done a lot of peer observations. I started observing a lot of senior colleagues since day one. I entered this university and I have also been constantly observed by many other colleagues. And also I keep reflective journal on a regular basis. Oh, you're so atory. Or attend, many different international conferences. So I think being a lifelong learner or receiving all kinds of different constant teacher training give me a lot of confidence. And all of these, Help me prepare beautifully for my teaching career. So I think despite the fact that I don't really have an EAP related qualification, I am confident for being an EAP teacher. 

[00:22:39] Laura Richards: How about you, Sanchia? 

[00:22:40] Sanchia Rodrigues: So this is really interesting because before I entered, the field, I was told, you can't work in EAP unless you have, sorry, I should say you can't work in EAP in the UK, unless you have your Master's degree in Applied Linguistics. And this was not at all on my radar as a qualification that I needed. I was amassing a collection of in-service classroom-practice-based qualifications, things like the Delta and the courses offered by International House. And so when I did the MA, I was really surprised to, to find out how theoretical it was. There was a TESOL option, but not an EAP option. And I know that's not the case for all providers. But I think it's fair to say that, it's not common to find an entire Master's degree that is wholly geared towards EAP. There's very few of those, I think, available in this country.

[00:23:31] Laura Richards: Yeah, very few. I did a quick scan as well of, Master's courses in general in the UK and the number of language teaching courses specific courses versus general TESOL courses was huge. So we're talking about maybe 130 plus, TESOL courses. But only a handful of more specific language teaching courses, including MA TEAP courses.

I was thinking back as you were talking, Carrie, about all of the in-service teacher training that you've done in the CPD. And I wonder, when I was starting out, would I have felt more legitimate as an English teacher if I had an EAP qualification? 

I've got one final question for you moving on before we finish up: where do we think we will find ourselves as EAP practitioners in the next 5/10/20 years, so this question kind of ties into the idea of whether or not EAP, and this is, quite a political question, is it sustainable? How is it going to change? How is it going to transform? 

[00:24:26] Sanchia Rodrigues: I think that connects to what I was saying earlier about how I think the way that I like to describe what I do is so focused on the students that I work with. And so I think for me, the question of whether EAP is sustainable in my context depends so much on fluctuations in student numbers and demographics. It's no secret that at the moment, UK higher education is very much dependent on the tuition fees of international students. And there's been, I think it's fair to say, a consistent decline in those over the last few years. And I know that's led to concerns about whether or not full-time EAP staff are part of what universities will look like in 5 or 10 years time. And I've certainly heard some really upsetting stories from colleagues, but equally, I was reading, I think it was, Mittelmeier and Zhang, who write that, EAP, they see EAP as a transformative space for intercultural learning and Ian Bruce's chapter in the Contextualizing EAP book that came out recently, where they talked about EAP as a space for hope. I can't remember the exact quote, but I think it was to do with the idea of EAP is a space to explore interculturality and new language practices, a space for creativity.
And I really, liked that vision because I thought it brought out what we, I don't know, I don't want to speak for the two of you, but I think what we all love about our jobs, Carrie, you mentioned how different it is, how much it changes and keeping up with that and your professional development and we talked earlier about difference, so much diversity and difference in the classroom and among staff too. 

[00:25:58] Laura Richards: I love the idea that EAP is a place for hope and I think it really can be. I'm glad that you mentioned, as difficult as it is, the situation in the UK. And I wonder how this contrasts to what you think the situation is in China because obviously the context you're working with and your students is really quite different and the reasons that they would find themselves there. 

[00:26:17] Carrie Qian: Yeah, so as I introduced previously, our university is transnational. So the students basically receive a UK-style learning culture which is very student centered, and this is a huge challenge for our domestic students. And speaking of sustainability, I would answer this question probably from a slightly different perspective from Sanchia.
I think this world is constantly changing, and it's ever evolving. We can't really say what sorts of skills we have to prepare our students for future in order to get them, competitive in the future job market. We can't predict. So I think it is more important than ever before to help our students understand their identity as a learner.

[00:27:09] Sanchia Rodrigues: Carrie, I think you're so right about that.
And I think we've seen that so clearly, with the developments in ChatGPT over the last couple of years, how much that has changed people's conception of, what language skills even are and especially what they look like at university. 

[00:27:26] Laura Richards: I think those are really crucial perspectives on where we're going to find ourselves. And I think back to Hyland's defence of EAP and it makes me sad that we feel we have to defend it and that we have to have these continuing conversations about what we do and so I really hope that, through this podcast, we'll be able to explore what this means for us as practitioners and how our identity is continually changing. 
 So I just want to thank you both for chatting today. It's been really lovely talking to you. And I look forward to seeing you in future podcast episodes.

Voices notes from listeners

[00:27:58] Laura Richards: Back in March, Kings College London held a Professional Interest Meeting or PIM on the theme of 'Power, Collaboration and Influence'. And some of the attendees have been kind enough to share their thoughts on the day. So here are some voice notes from members of the BALEAP community to give you a flavor of what went on. 

[00:28:21] Jennifer Sizer: Hi, I'm Jennifer Sizer from the University of Reading and also the Creative Discipline SIG convener. I really enjoyed the PIM at King's College London on collaboration. I particularly enjoyed Iwona [Winiarska-]Pringle's talk on widening participation with asylum seeking students, particularly the focus on feelings and emotions experienced by both students and staff. Also really enjoyed the talk at the end from Lucy Watson and Phillipa Bunch. It felt a little bit like a plenary to me and there was a really helpful definition of critical care I'd urge you to follow up with. And that was a key takeaway for me was the emotions involved not only for staff but also for students in EAP provision and something I hope to explore with our SIG and potentially another SIG in a future event. Thank you for listening.

[00:29:14] Jody Bradford: Hi, my name is Jody Bradford. I'm a lecturer in EAP at the University of Leeds. I've appreciated the BALEAP PIM at King's College and there were several highlights. I'd like to speak to Judy Axelby and Karen Nicholls' presentation, Academic Literacy in a Hostile Environment, Improving Access to Education to university assessments through collaborative teaching. For me, this was a really powerful example of how we can collaborate sustainably over time with subject specialists by foregrounding our expertise, our scholarship, as EAP practitioners which draw on the EAP knowledge base, um, and I think it's something that we can all use perhaps as an example, of the ways in which we could sustainably collaborate. 
 
[00:30:03] Rob Playfair: Hi there, my name is Rob Playfair. I'm an EAP Practitioner and PhD student at Birkbeck College, University of London. Iwona Winiarska-Pringle and Sofia Di Giallonardo talked about collaboration between widening participation and EAP Practitioners. They described how they adapted and kind of continuously monitored the impact of a pre sessional course, which was specifically designed for asylum seeking students. For me, from this case that they shared, a real striking achievement was that they managed to convince the university to fully fund these places. It really made me realise that things that might seem impossible, for example, EAP being used in a way that wasn't purely profit making, may only seem that way because they haven't happened yet.
So as both an attendee and a presenter, I found it to be a really well organized PIM. So thank you and great work Kings and all the wonderful presenters.
 
Wrap up and how to get in touch

[00:30:57] Laura Richards: Thank you so much for listening to this first episode of All Things EAP. We really hope you've enjoyed it and that you've found something interesting or useful in it. We really want to hear from you. as well. So if you'd like to share a comment, suggestion or an insight into something that we've talked about on one of the episodes, please send us an email. 
The email address is podcast@baleap.org, but you can also get in touch through X, formerly known as Twitter and our YouTube channel, which are both @AllThingsEAP. Thank you again for listening, and we hope that you can join us for the next episode. 
Take care. Bye-bye.