[00:00:00] Sanchia: Welcome to another mini episode of All Things EAP. We're back with more coverage of the 2025 BALEAP Conference. Now, the biblical rain in Plymouth last night has finally given way to some glorious sunshine, and lots of the attendees expressed similarly sunny attitudes when I asked them why they decided to come to the conference this year.  

[00:00:26] Winnie: I am Winnie, I'm from Hong Kong Polytechnic University. I flew to London, 14 hours flight, then 3 hours train to Plymouth.

[00:00:36] Sanchia: Wow. That is commitment. What was it that motivated you to travel so far? 

[00:00:41] Winnie: We want to kind of get a sense of what the community's like. Also, hopefully like we can learn something about best practice for teaching EAP. 

[00:00:51] Sanchia: I'm really glad that you made the journey because we both work at Warwick but met for the first time today, so yeah. 
Hi, Yaxin, you're an early stage researcher. What value do you think BALEAP has for researchers? 

[00:01:06] Yaxin: Okay, so actually this is my first time coming to a huge event like this, and this is very closely related to what I'm researching into, so definitely I get a lot of really interesting and insightful ideas from other professors and researchers. And what is very important is I get to build connections with people from different institutions, from different roles. It also helped me kind of broaden my horizon, so that I can see things from different angles and perspectives and I can probably add more elements or make some adjustments of my research project, so it is definitely very interesting and I am looking forward to attending more events like this.   

[00:01:51] Sanchia: Hi Victoria. Hi Beth. you're both from Queens University. What's the benefit of both of you attending the conference?  

[00:01:57] Beth: Well, we've been able to divide and conquer a lot of the time, which has been great 'cause there's been so many different talks that are interesting. So then we've been able to reconvene after and share our ideas. Maximize the amount of talks we can attend. But at the same time, there's been many times we've attended things together and really thought collaboratively. So we've had that opportunity to balance that.

[00:02:18] Victoria: And for me, one of the best things is just having space and time to be able to listen and learn from other EAP practitioners to really think about and be inspired by what they're doing in terms of their research, in terms of where they're positioned within their institutions. And also have time to chat with Beth, my colleague, about how we may actually implement a lot of these things. And actually we have time to develop it. 

[00:02:45] Sanchia: Hi Mustafa. You're not an EAP practitioner anymore, so why come to BALEAP? 

[00:02:51] Mustafa: I'm still involved in English Medium Instruction, which is just EAP programmes readying students for their studies in academic subject departments. So I'm the convener of English Medium Instruction Special Interest Group, so that's why I'm here. The part that I'm very much interested in seeing EAP practitioners perspectives, opinions, and then just, take them with me back to English Medium Instruction arena.  

[00:03:22] Sanchia: Hi, Natalie, your first BALEAP and your first time back in the UK after 30 years. What role does BALEAP play in your development? 

[00:03:30] Natalie: So, I got involved in EAP 15, 20 years ago, and because I was working somewhere that was not UK based, you know, there's the issue of how do you access materials and issues in professional development. So, what I found was that the, SIGs were really, really useful and that everything is accessible online. It made me feel like I was part of a community and, you know, gradually built up my confidence with, with regards to EAP. So, it's something that I would encourage BALEAP to continue thinking about all our international colleagues particularly when it comes to conferences, 'cause most people abroad can't come and attend conferences, so as much as possible uh, , it really is worth trying to put things online as well, and, and giving access.  

[00:04:20] Sanchia: Hi Amanda. First time at BALEAP, 'cause you're usually at IATEFL. What differences have you noticed? 

[00:04:26] Amanda: Well, that's a great question. I've been really pleasantly surprised with the BALEAP conference, I have to say. There's such a diversity of different opinions, different interests. , different levels of experience as well. And, I've actually flown over from Berlin to come to this conference . The talks have been, fantastic, really, really high level. It's a bit smaller than the IATEFL conference, but I do like how specialized it is and you can really get into, into depths of, of EAP. Sometimes it's been a bit intimidating, especially with the, uh, the people who teach on doctoral programs. But I feel like part of the family here. 

[00:05:00] Sanchia: Is there anything that you think BALEAP could learn from IATEFL? 

[00:05:04] Amanda: One thing that I've noticed is the lack of social media presence. Maybe having a hashtag, like hashtag BALEAP 2025 could be great for the next conference. 

[00:05:14] Sanchia: Day 3 also included another excellent keynote, this time from Ramzi Merabet of the University of Leeds.
Hi, Ramzi. You gave a great keynote about research about / with / for international students, or rather students who are labeled international. Can you tell us about your ideas? 

[00:05:34] Ramzi: Okay, I'll just tell you about one specific idea. Doing research with international students is an amazing thing to do. It's already questioning the fact that we do research "on" students as if we objectify them, we turn them into a research object or, or a source of cultural capital, or we turn our research into an extractive process. Whatever research that comes alongside that is good, like looking at students as partners, co-creation, collaboration, community, all of that is good. 
But that's probably the second step for me because the first step is the structural composition of the institution where we do all of this nice research. When we think about it, is it equal? Is it fair? Is it ... Does it have any forms of hierarchy, any forms of power that we can question first in order for collaboration to be meaningful? 
The answer is yes, there is a lot of inequality. The very first inequality is basically the fact that international students fall outside of the perimeter of social justice. When you think about access, widening participation, you find that it's home student terrain. It's an environment for those who are considered into legal systems as citizens basically. Whereas when it comes to international students, the opportunities are either limited, they come out of, you know, charity, we are helping the other. They're not out of the assumption that people are actually human beings deserving of, of social justice like anybody else, basically. 
So in order for us to make collaboration, partnership, co-creation, community, all of these nice words, meaningful and of actual impact, we need to first deal with the structural inequalities that exist institutionally.  

[00:07:18] Sanchia: But the keynote wasn't the only session that had people talking.
I'm here with Tim Lee, and we've just listened to Sara Vaghefian's talk on inclusive language. Tim, thoughts? 

[00:07:28] Tim: Absolutely loved the talk. I thought Sara's work on inclusion and inclusive language on the programme really struck a chord with her audience. The discussion afterwards was also really insightful because it, it seems that a common theme across many universities at the moment is how to improve inclusion, how to close the awards gap. And the discussion around that was really fruitful, looking at how we implement new language, um, implementing policies. I know there's a talk about RIPIAG, which is the racially inclusive practice developed in Leicester that's being adopted, so yeah, really enjoyable. 

[00:08:06] Aaron: My name's Aaron Woodcock, and I'm from the University of Reading, and I'm also part of the STEM SIG at BALEAP. 

[00:08:12] Sanchia: So you were telling me about a really interesting talk that you went to. 

[00:08:16] Aaron: Yeah, that's right. I really enjoyed a talk about putting AI into an EAP curriculum. It was by Cassie from University of Manchester and she had some really useful frameworks and strategies for doing that.   

[00:08:31] Sanchia: Last but not least, let's take a quick peek behind the scenes 

[00:08:35] Katie: I'm Katie Rhodes and I'm a Senior Event Support Coordinator here at the University of Plymouth, so organizing all kinds of events from 
evening lectures to full blown four day conferences like BALEAP 2025. 

[00:08:47] Sanchia: And what do you like about your job?

[00:08:48] Katie: I love that no two days are the same. I love the kind of challenge and the firefighting and dealing with everything as it gets thrown at me, and I hope that I do a good job of it, knowing I sometimes drop a ball here and there. 

[00:08:59] Sanchia: I mean, it all looks really impressive from our perspective, so well done. And if there's one thing you could change about your role in organizing this conference, what would it be? 

[00:09:07] Katie: Uh, so me and technology are not very good friends, and we rely on it so heavily. Things like the app that we use for this event has been absolutely amazing and such a lifesaver, but keeping it up to date and making sure that that matches the paper versions and all that kind of thing is just, it can be a real headache, so anytime I can delegate that to someone else, a hundred percent I will. 

Thanks for tuning in to our snapshot of Day 3 of the BALEAP conference. I'll leave you here outside the National Marine Aquarium where the Plymouth team are putting the finishing touches to what I'm sure will be a lovely dinner. Also, best conference dinner venue ever? Shh, don't tell anyone I said that! 
If you do have any suggestions or feedback, please get in touch at podcast@baleap.org. In the meantime, enjoy the sunshine!