Olwyn Alexander

PhD thesis writing resources

How far can we go in teaching research communication?

A recent flurry of posts on the BALEAP discussion list requesting PhD thesis writing resources got me reflecting on my own experiences of working with postdoctoral students on writing for research. Coincidentally, a post appeared in Patter on a similar topic. Pat Thomson is a Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham. She researches ‘the arts, creativity and other kinds of experiential approaches in school and community settings’ and also writes books, papers and this blog on research communication. When I was teaching I found her blog enormously insightful for teaching research communication.

Foundation Programmes: designing courses for students from diverse backgrounds

Searching for universal concepts in EAP course design

Anecdotal reports across the Higher Education sector in the UK suggest there has been a rapid recent expansion in the numbers of students taking Foundation Programmes, which combine study of academic subjects with study of EAP, to prepare for undergraduate study. What seems new is that the student population is more diverse, including both international students who have learned English as a foreign language, international students following English-medium instruction (EMI) in their home countries, and students in the UK whose English is an additional spoken language (EAL). This third group may be the first in their family to go to university so they lack the cultural capital that parents educated to tertiary level can pass to their children. These students may have short attention spans and need considerable pastoral support in understanding how to study effectively. It can be argued that each of these three groups have different language learning and study skills needs yet they are often taught together in EAP classrooms, representing a significant challenge in course design. In this post I want to think about syllabus design which enables these diverse groups to learn together in one classroom.

Everyone recognises Einstein

The value of knowing the celebrities in your field

Put up a picture of Einstein in your class and most of your students will be able to name him and some will be able to tell you what theory he is famous for. However, if you put up pictures of other influential figures in the fields your students wish to study, or even academics in your own institution, the chances are that very few students will be able to identify them. Why does this matter?

Image by Eugenio Hansen, OFS from Pixabay

What if… ?

What would you do differently?

WordPress has come up with another writing prompt that got me thinking about continuing professional development (CPD) in any field, but more particularly in EAP if you plan to work with students preparing to study at university. The most confident EAP practitioners are able to think like researchers, constantly asking themselves: What if I’m wrong?

Play in EAP

Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

According to WordPress, it’s bloganuary, when bloggers are provided with little prompts to get their creative juices flowing. Oddly enough the one above really did make me think about aspects of EAP that are often neglected – play and humour. It’s not something most teachers beginning their EAP career associate with the field and more often you hear teachers describe the content of EAP as boring and dull – hardly a jokey affair.

An introduction to EAP Essentials

I started this blog at the end of 2019, thinking it would make a good retirement project. Now three years on from retirement, with no active involvement in EAP teaching or research, I no longer have much to contribute to the development of the field. However, I was recently asked to write an introduction to EAP Essentials, the teacher handbook I wrote in 2008 with Sue Argent and Jenifer Spencer. This was an opportunity to reflect on the principles that underpinned the book and which seemed worth sharing here.

Constructive alignment for quality enhancement

The BALEAP Accreditation Scheme (BAS) May event this year is exploring the concept of constructive alignment (Biggs, 2014), which is one of the underlying principles of the revised scheme. So I’ve been thinking about what this means for EAP learning and teaching. The concept was articulated by John Biggs in a series of articles and a book: Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Incidentally, this book also explored approaches to teaching international students and came to the common sense conclusion that, rather than see students from other education cultures as somehow needing special attention, all students would benefit from the approaches he was proposing.

Chat GPT – how worried should we be?

Have you tried one yet? An ‘intelligent virtual assistant’ that engages in what can feel like authentic extended conversations. The Beta version of Chat GPT, developed by the company OpenAI, is available to play with and I’ve come across several articles assessing it’s functionality.

This article from Forbes magazine suggests it can help to brainstorm ideas, understand complex topics, summarise research, act as a writing assistant and translate into 95 different languages. Do all these functions sound useful for a student looking to get help with essay writing? Of course they do!

Demonstrating competence in Discourse/discourse

I’ve recently been involved with assessing portfolios of evidence and Reflective Accounts of Professional Practice (RAPPs) for the latest round of applications for TEAP Fellows. These require applicants to demonstrate they are working at masters level, as specified in the original TEAP Competency Framework:

[…] where practitioners are expected to demonstrate a systematic understanding of the main theoretical areas of a discipline and critical awareness of current issues and problems. They should be able to exercise independent initiative to make complex decisions, plan tasks or deal with problems in the absence of complete or consistent information. They should show a commitment to continue to develop professionally (BALEAP, 2008).