Abstract
Within English for Academic Purposes (EAP), writing instruction has often been of primary interest with a focus on curricula design and implementation. This especially holds true in East Asia where many universities operate EAP writing programmes. This study is located within this region, taking an inquiry stance in a small-scale case study of four EAP writing programmes. Through practitioner-as-researcher reflections and triangulating interviews from fellow colleagues within this professional context, we add to this discussion by uncovering three interrelated and hierarchical themes that have emerged from our data. At the university and inter-department organizational level, our data points to the need for universities housing these programmes to create a culture of collaboration where relevant academic expertise can directly inform the classroom (EAP writing) instruction. At the departmental level, our data suggests that standardization, especially in relation to intra-department testing, assignments, etc. is beneficial. Finally, at the classroom level, we posit, through the observations in the inquiry, that certain teaching methods are associated with different levels of proficiency. Teacher-led frameworks are more observed and suitable among lower proficiency language learners. Conversely, higher proficiency students expect and are better served by task-based or student-led approaches.
Introduction
This inquiry is set within the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) space, a subfield within English for Specific Purposes (ESP) (Starfield, 2016). Basturkmen and Wette defined EAP as the ‘teaching of varieties of English to assist students of all ages to manage the linguistic, conceptual and social demands of academic study, as well as to support the dissemination and exchange of research and scholarship’ (2016: 164). Catterall and Ireland posited that ‘one of the central debates in (EAP) concerns the underlying principles on which courses are designed’ (2010: 98). As EAP writing teachers and classroom-level researchers, we undertook a small-scale case study to compare and contrast four East Asian (three Japanese; one Korean) EAP writing programmes in which we have taught.
Using the stance of practitioner inquiry (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 2009), we endeavoured to academically examine our experiences within these writing programmes to uncover discussion points regarding the debate to which Catterall and Ireland alluded and to discover possible inroads of further inquiry. Through reflexive journaling practices, including interactions with fellow colleagues in these programmes, we identified three themes that emerged from the data that provide implications for further investigation. These three themes are: the benefits of academic and practitioner collaboration, programme standardization, and teacher-led versus student-led curricula designs in relation to pedagogical approaches. The emergent themes contribute to the existing literature in EAP writing curricula design, while the inquiry itself contributes to the growing need for practitioner-as-researcher inquiry to become a more widely-used methodology in classrooms rather than only a theory in the ESL professional context (Cirocki et al., 2014). Based on the focus and design of this inquiry, we report our findings in this study in a format loosely based on Farrell’s (2011) case study of ESL teachers’ reflections on professional development and Matsuda, Saenkhum and Accardi’s (2013) institutional study of ESL writing teachers’ perceptions of students’ needs.
Approach and Design
This case study of four East Asian EAP writing programmes where at least one of the authors had taught, or was currently teaching, was undertaken following Yin’s (2009) case study protocol with an inquiry stance (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 2009). This approach enabled us to use reflection as an evaluation (Cirocki et al., 2014; McKernan, 2013) of the programmes’ efficacy. Our primary source of data was our researcher/practitioner journals while working in our respective programmes. This included reflections on discussions we had with one another regarding our professional practices in the writing programmes over the course of more than seven years.
To develop a deeper understanding of our own experiences, we conducted informal oral interviews with other colleagues from November 2016 to July 2017, asking them to contribute direct quotes. These interviews then helped to contextualize our own perceptions of the trends emerging from our own data, that of our research journals. This followed Yin’s (2009) protocol for various facets of triangulation in order to achieve quality control. Method and data triangulation were employed by having peers from the different programmes check our initial reflections which we sent to them via email. Researcher or investigator triangulation was observed since this project involved two researchers who worked independently and in unison, to uncover the emerging themes presented in this study.
As this inquiry was an initial evaluation of the four programmes, we focussed our analysis on the themes that arose in the following four features of the writing programmes:
Curriculum Design
Methods of Instruction
Assessment Schemes
Teacher and Student Perceptions of Effectiveness.
We allowed the themes to emerge through the reflections of our journals, which we then triangulated with informal interviews with our peers in each of the programmes, achieving the forum aspect of a case study.
Reporting the Findings
Given the practitioner-as-researcher nature of this inquiry, the article has been written to break from the conventional structure of research reporting in order to increase its accessibility to other practitioners in the field. After presenting an overview of the study and its approach and design, a summary of the four programmes is presented with the remainder of the article focussed on presenting the themes our inquiry has uncovered. Relevant theory along with germane reflections from our experiences within our particular case are interwoven in presenting each theme.
About the Researchers
Together, we have over 27 years in ELT experience, 15 of these being within the Japanese or Korean university setting, and nearly all 27 years have been spent teaching academic writing. We have been active academically, with several publications and conference presentations among us. Two of us have studied at the doctoral level (one has completed the degree and the other is in the final stages of dissertation writing) and through this effort have received extensive training and employed various approaches to qualitative methods, including the practitioner-as-researcher approach. The third researcher holds a relevant MA and was trained in action research while attaining the degree.
The Case Study: Four East Asian University EAP Writing Programmes
Contrast between EFL and ELF within Our Case Study
This inquiry uses the terms English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) to describe the surrounding contexts of the four programmes (see Graddol, 2006). In those programmes we have identified as EFL, it is a programme where English is a foreign language and is the medium of instruction. In this context the students share the same first language (L1) and native speaker norms comprise the desired learning outcomes. For the programme we have identified as ELF, the medium of instruction is still English, but the students come from diverse L1 backgrounds and English is the mutually intelligible language amongst the students. ELF, as a paradigm, also de-emphasizes native speaker goals as the goal of the language development process and instead emphasizes mutual understanding and equal standing in interactions, hence ‘lingua franca’ (see Jenkins, 2006; Jenkins, 2015). The interaction between ELF and EAP has been controversial of late, with Jenkins initially suggesting they were not compatible at the theoretical level. However, her recent work in 2015 and Tribble’s (2017) current efforts at discrediting English as a Lingua Franca Academic (ELFA), as an approach to EAP suggest that now ELF and EAP can somewhat be acknowledged as synergic.
Programme 1
The first programme in our case study was in a Korean EFL setting at a women’s university in Seoul. The programme, acting as a satellite programme to a larger ELT division, served two primary purposes in relation to EAP writing:
Conducting an intensive academic writing programme for incoming freshmen.
Providing academic writing tutoring for students (either 1 to 1 consultation or small group instruction).
The expected outcome for the programme and broader division was a five-paragraph academic essay. The university itself is highly ranked and regarded informally as the second-best women’s university in the Republic of Korea. The programme and other ELT and applied linguistics divisions at the university were aligned with an internal proficiency scale that mirrored the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL, 2012) proficiency guidelines (hereafter uncited). The professional culture and working environment was constructed to facilitate inter-department communication and collaboration.
Programme 2
The second programme in our case study was in Western Japan at a women’s university. This institution is highly ranked with most students gaining admission via the nationwide university entrance examination protocol. This programme, unlike the first, is the primary deliverer of academic English writing instruction to second and third year students. The goals of instruction and outcomes, primarily governed by the academic essay, were similar to the Korean university. By using textbooks published by international publishers, this programme’s instruction was loosely aligned to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (Council of Europe, 2011, hereafter uncited) and corresponding Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) score ranges but the programme did not emphasize alignment in its objectives, teaching and assessment. This second programme’s professional culture did, however, foster extensive informal interaction between researchers (doctorate holders), instructors, and administrators.
Programmes 3 and 4
The third and fourth programmes were located at the same international university in the Kanto region of Japan (greater Tokyo area). Unlike the university of the second programme (in Western Japan), this university had a middle ranking where students were accepted via both national entrance exam scores and university-conducted interviews, with the latter used to fill the incoming classes to maximum capacity. The academic writing programmes and its corresponding department, until very recently, constituted a de facto ‘island’ in the university with little input or interaction with the related departments at the university. This isolation was reflected in its professional development culture. This was in stark contrast with the previous two programmes outlined above. From early 2017, however, programme coordinators were beginning to establish more permanent ties between the programmes and other departments.
As for the differing characteristics between the two programmes within the same university, the third programme was EFL in nature (Japanese English Language Learners [ELLs]). Similar to the second programme, the university in Japan used textbooks aligned to the CEFR, but with little emphasis on achieving parity with the CEFR in relation to assessment and objectives within the programme. The programme’s de facto goal was the five-paragraph academic essay aligned with that of the previous two programmes, but this was neither codified nor enforced at the programme management level.
The fourth programme was ELF (Jenkins, 2006; Jenkins, 2015) in nature since the ELLs were from divergent first language (L1) backgrounds and the emphasis was more on content. The programme worked towards the eventual goal of writing an academic report using the house style of the American Psychological Association (APA) through EAP/ESP curricula. This learning outcome was determined after a needs analysis focussing on what the students would need to do in their English as a Medium of Instruction courses (EMI – see Dearden, 2014) in Business, Economics, and International Relations where the medium of instruction and assessment was English. This is often the goal of EAP/ESP classes in preparing students for writing and studying in English in tertiary education (Basturkmen and Wette, 2016).
The main characteristics of the four programmes of the case study are listed in Table 1:
Summative Presentation of the Inquiry’s Case study.
Programme 1 was aligned to the ACTFL; the others used the CEFR to a varying degree. These ranges come from researchers’ referencing programmes’ data and input from the interviewees.
Participants in Data Triangulation
As practitioner-researchers, we presented our data to colleagues and then conducted informal interviews (N = 14 - all participants, first round; N = 5 - instructors in programmes 1 and 2, second round in relation to Theme 2) in our respective professional circles. This is a cornerstone of action research for practitioners-as-researchers (McDonough and McDonough, 2014), in that it empowers practitioners to conduct research locally, within and amongst fellow teachers in their professional circles. Borrowing the term from quantitative research, a convenience sample (Creswell, 2011) was constructed for each programme:
Programme 1 1 director (Korean with 10+ years’ experience leading the programme) 1 academic (PhD, Applied Linguistics) who served as a programme consultant and advisor 2 instructors (MA TESOL holders with 7+ years in the programme between them)
Programme 2 1 administrator/academic (PhD, Applied Linguistics) with over 25 years at the university 3 instructors (all MA TESOL or the equivalent holders with experience in the programme at 1–3 years because of programme policy)
Programmes 3 and 4 2 programme coordinators (MA TESOL holders with 2.5 and 2 years’ experience, respectively) 3 instructors (2 MA TESOL holders + 1 General Education MA holder who is qualified to teach in American public schools, experience in programme ranges from 1 to 4 years).
Analysis
Inquiry case studies, both large- and small-scale, have research questions that emerge from the data, and should ultimately present issues that arose during the study, including any limitations and constraints that should be acknowledged and any suggestions for further inquiry (McKernan, 2013: 13). As previously mentioned, we began our inquiry into each programme examining:
Curriculum design
Methods of instruction
Assessment schemes
Teacher perceptions of effectiveness.
Within these lenses of examining each writing programme, three themes seem to emerge across these several aspects: the benefits of academic and practitioner collaboration (university-level organizations), extent of programme standardization (departmental-level), and the relationship between proficiency and choice of instructional methods (classroom-level). Each theme is presented and discussed through this four-pronged lens although not every theme was apparent in every aspect of the writing programmes.
Theme 1: The Benefits of Researcher and Teacher Interaction and Collaboration
Programmes 1 and 2 had interaction between researchers/academics and instructors while programmes 3 and 4 did not. We found through our reflections and interviewing that the benefits of the interactions between instructors and academics fall into two broad areas:
Better focus regarding curriculum, including planned methods of instruction, and assessment.
Positive teacher reactions to interactions with academics through professional development opportunities.
Curriculum and Assessment
Reflections on programmes 1 and 2 indicated that the curricula and assessment programmes were better planned and operated than those found in programmes 3 and 4. Our initial reflections suggested the interactions between the instructors and academics might have had something to do with this, and our interviews with teachers from these programmes seemed to suggest this. In summary, this interaction established and maintained curriculum and assessment standardization in the programmes. According to an academic in programme 1 regarding the support that ACTFL provides the EAP writing programme, ‘I think that they [instructors] do agree with the basic ideas of the [ACTFL scale] and use those ideas as a guideline.’ An academic in programme 2, while noting room for improvement in his context, sees standardization of curriculum and assessment as a way for programme designers to demonstrate to students their commitment to pedagogically proven methods that create an environment for language development:
Standardization ensures the students get a bare minimum coverage of the content before they progress. But standardization should not mean everyone gets the same equal input and practice because people have different abilities and needs, but in order to qualify for entry to, say 2nd year’s English class, they should have met a minimum ability level in first year.
To ensure a degree of standardization in these programmes, academics in programme 1 continuously trained new arrivals to the programme and helped to maintain standards as time progressed. The same programme 2 academic we interviewed informed us that interactions with frontline instructors with usually newer MA degrees were useful because they carried forward new perspectives in the field and could provide useful feedback on strategic decisions that academics were making for the writing programme. The instructors we interviewed from programme 2 corroborated this observation.
However, academics in these programmes acknowledged the negative effects that standardization can have which could be described as demotivation for teachers and students. Teachers in programmes 1 and 2 mostly saw standardization as a useful tool that had positive outcomes. They, like the academics, did express some concern about the balance between standardization and instructional agency (referred to as ‘academic freedom’ by some instructors during interviews) within their classrooms.
Interviews with both academics and teachers contained data that suggests it is important for programmes to offer instructional agency or ‘academic freedom’ where the teacher is consulted as an expert, but where standardization guides the pedagogical practice. Remaining cognizant of the limitations that all programmes can have due to large class sizes, widely disparate abilities or inconsistent teaching quality, academics should also directly consult the teachers and give weight to their expertise.
For the most part both programmes 1 and 2 were still able to achieve cooperation and foster respect between their instructors and academics/researchers. From the instructor point of view, interactions with academics allowed for a clearer picture of how theory is being put successfully into practice. From the academics’ perspective, the instructors were like engineers who could provide useful feedback as the operators of their theoretical/programme decisions. We observed that the academics in these programmes were MA-holding language instructors at one time. There was, therefore, a feeling of mutual respect and understanding. One teacher from the Korean programme indicated a general consensus that academics who were humble and aware of their connection with the instructors were best received.
We also found that programmes 1 and 2 (more so with programme 1) felt more assured that their teaching and assessments were in line with what the greater ELT community considered acceptable. Having the academics explain the rationales for these decisions meant that the instructors could justify to themselves and to others what they were doing, in layman’s terms. A teacher at the Korean programme told us that everything he does in the writing class is in service of students achieving a higher ACTFL band. An instructor at the Western Japan university said that she knows that when she has her students do extensive reading she knows of three papers that support the choice in terms of developing students’ collocational writing abilities. Another programme 2 instructor, in the same vein, stated that the university’s noted ER academic and he ‘have conferred about Extensive Reading for years and he has been helpful in other areas’.
In programmes 3 and 4, this interaction was missing and something was lost when instructors, whose primary training was in how to teach language, were forced to make decisions through intra-programme dialogue that did not include academic voices primarily focused on nature of language and its acquisition. One interviewee mentioned that because different groups of teachers came from different MA programmes with different camps of linguistic thought/theory, there were disagreements in terms of vocabulary learning, namely incidental versus overt, and that no one was in a position to compromise. Programme 4 (ELF), which had an academic/instructor interaction via a needs analysis, had fewer issues than programme 3 (EFL).
What we observed somewhat echoed what had been published before this study with Ellis (1997) being the seminal argument for research/theory having a primary role in language teaching. Crookes and Lehner (1998) observed that most academics in the ELT field were first English L2 instructors. Crookes and Lehner and, later, Haley and Renz (2002) argued that second and foreign language teaching was enhanced and perhaps only successful when theory and practice along with the researcher and practitioner, were in harmony. The synergistic relationship between practice (language teaching theory) and academia/research (linguistic theory) has also been posited as necessary for breaking new ground. According to Xia, ‘it’s universally acknowledged that any new language teaching theory cannot come into being without the break in linguistic theory first’ (2014: 599).
Positive Teacher Reactions
In addition to the feedback from teachers discussing the benefits of this interaction at the curriculum, teaching methods, and assessment levels, an unexpected tangential sub-trend was also uncovered. Namely, that the interaction between academics and instructors facilitated better professional development and academic growth opportunities. In this way, there was a new area of effectiveness uncovered.
Since we did not annotate this in our original reflections, we decided to conduct subsequent semi-structured interviews with the teachers from programmes 1 and 2 to further investigate this finding. As this phenomenon was stated by the teachers earlier, the structured aspect of the interview was stated simply in the question: ‘Could you please tell us more about how the interaction with academics helps you along the lines of professional development and academic growth?’ The following were the salient points:
Teachers were inspired to read and learn more about the theory underpinning decisions made at the programme management level in curriculum design, teaching methodology, and assessment. For example, a teacher from programme 1 said that she learned more about productive language testing and inter-rater reliability because of dialogue with the academics helping to make these decisions. ‘The professors inspired us to read more after we did workshops with them; they were happy to guide us’, said the other programme 1 instructor.
As academics conducted their research projects, teachers would be involved to varying degrees and this involvement broadened their understanding of the academic work underpinning their craft. Teachers at programme 1 broadened their understanding of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) because of the work being undertaken by researchers in the area.
There was a feeling that an interaction with academics would make their own transition into academia easier, if they chose that career path. From our journaling and correspondence with the programme 1 academic, we recalled that one instructor entered a doctorate programme, in part, because of the confidence these interactions instilled and that most instructors in the programme tended to be academically active via low level publishing and conference presentations.
Theme 2: The Extent of Programme Standardization
This theme had two further sub-categories: internal and external standardization. By internal standardization, we refer to policies and decisions that are within the programme at the departmental level. This might be the use of a shared final exam or all teachers using the same grading system. External standardization refers to a programme aligning with international standards or protocols. For this discussion, this refers to a programme’s employment of an internationally recognized proficiency scale. In sum, programmes 1, 2 and 4 had adequate internal standardization while programme 3 had neither internal nor external standardization. Programme 1 was also externally standardized to the ACTFL and was the only programme in this inquiry to take this path.
Advantages of Internal Standardization
The teachers and administrators of programmes 1, 2, and 4 agreed that curricula goals and assessments were in sync and somewhat sequenced. They, furthermore, posited that these efforts made their jobs easier. Several teachers and programme managers had experience in both programmes 3 and 4 and the former was often cited as an example of what not to do. One such teacher told us that as a holder on an American MA-TESOL she had been trained to operate and supplement a curriculum, and the stress of designing one was too much given the other duties she had to fulfil. This sentiment was echoed by another teacher in programme 3 who stated, ‘… it is completely unreasonable for us to teach writing with the dearth of structure we have currently’. Administrators of programmes 1 and 2 stated that the internal standardization that they had in their programmes made the task of managing the programmes easier. Conversely, the management of programme 3 was actively pursuing CEFR-alignment of the curriculum at the time of writing this inquiry.
Disadvantages of Internal Standardization
Teachers at times mentioned a sense of having their ‘toes stepped on’ or their expertise marginalized, especially when mandates were restrictive. A teacher from programme 4 gave the following example:
When I started teaching academic writing, it was clear that the preceding reading course had not developed [the students’] academic reading skills enough. They were weakest in skimming articles to build a comprehensive literature review and finding appropriate sources. I floated the idea of inserting an annotated bibliography assignment in lieu of an essay assignment that I felt was redundant and off topic. The course coordinator shot down the idea. Wouldn’t you believe they made that very change the next semester?!
Some of programme 1’s teachers felt that the in-house materials they were forced to use were subpar vis-a-vis commercially published alternatives. Programme 2 seemed to be cognizant of the need to respect teacher autonomy and an example of this was allowing instructors to choose their own course books if they could defend their choice in terms of being able to realize programme goals.
Programme 1 and External Standardization
Programme 1’s academic writing instructors were mandated to complete what was essentially ACTFL writing proficiency rater training. In the aggregate, those involved with programme 1 found this to be beneficial in a number of ways:
The ACTFL’s conceptualization of the components of academic writing would be taught to students and used as a framework for feedback and positive washback (Bachmann and Palmer, 1996) on formative assessments.
Lesson planning was easier because ‘good’ objectives emerged easily from the ACTFL operation of writing proficiency.
Teachers felt confident about presenting the classroom research at conferences and in publications knowing that what they were doing conformed, to some degree, with international standards.
Programme managers felt that the programme had more ‘validity or standing’ with the teachers and students because of this link to international standards.
The drawbacks to this external standardization existed mainly at the teacher affective level in a manner similar to internal standardization’s negative effects. The instructors reported feeling that they could not really push back against some decisions because ultimately the ubiquity of the ACTFL was against their ideas or proposed customizations of the writing teaching process. According to one programme 1 instructor, this standardization, ‘limits creativity by holding up an exact goal’ where ‘tasks only dealing directly with attaining that goal’ are acceptable vis-a-vis programme curriculum design and operation.
Theme 3: The Relationship between Proficiency and the Choice of Instruction Methods
This trend manifested itself in the curriculum design and teacher perception of effectiveness areas of our lens. What was uncovered was that observed/demonstrated student ability was associated with the choice between a teacher-led curriculum, exemplified by Presentation, Practice, Production (PPP – see Willis and Willis, 2007), or a student-led curriculum where task performance is the driving factor and corresponding method of instruction (Lockwood, 2014). The former was employed more and viewed as more effective with lower proficiency ELLs and the latter was observed as more appropriate with higher proficiency students.
From the emic perspective garnered from our reflections and interviews, we found that the higher proficiency programmes, 1 and 4, were more comfortable with task-based learning than the lower proficiency programmes. It is important to note that both Korea and Japan, as Confucian societies to varying degrees, have a cultural bias favouring the teacher-centric classroom (Shimahara, 2002). Therefore, differences between the education culture in Japan and Korea might not be an unintended construct explaining this observation.
Hegelsen (2001) argued for Test/Task-Teach-Test/Task (TTT – see Willis and Willis, 2007) in the greater Japanese university ELT context because it gave Japanese students a chance to show the teacher what they already knew. We have found in our Japanese EFL perspectives (programmes 2 and 3), however, that students were overwhelmed by a task-based approach where the expected products were paragraphs, and ultimately essays. This gave rise to issues such as organization, cohesion, genre, and pragmatics, along with the expectations for accuracy (lexis + syntax) in the writing process. Teachers from both programmes 2 and 3 stated the following when asked about how a task-based approach to academic writing would work or has worked in their classrooms:
My students expect me to lead most of the writing lessons. I have tried to throw them into the “deep end” but when I have done that, they freak out and flood my inbox with questions. For sure, they expect and benefit from handholding (Teacher from programme 2). I have not tried it and would not. Our [students] are low level and lack the motivation to be challenged. You work here; you know what our [students] are like…Basically, our job is to push them through the process while realizing who [the students] are and meeting them where they’re at (Teacher from programme 3).
Essentially, programmes 2 and 3 employed a Present-Practice-Produce (PPP – see Willis and Willis, 2007) teaching methodology. The students were not exactly passive but the teacher controlled the process as exhibited by the terms ‘handholding’ and ‘push them through’ in the above statements.
Conversely, programmes 1 and 4 seemed to favour a tasked-based approach which mostly resembled Task/Teach-Teach-Task/Teach (TTT). As an instructor from programme 4 explained metaphorically, ‘my guys expect me to take the reins off and let them control the process’. This observation corroborates the suggestions of Lockwood (2014), who called for a flipped or task-based classroom where students had agency in terms of where the lesson would go. Hegelsen (2001: para. 4) stated that, for university students, a PPP-like approach was ‘wasting all they have accomplished’, and that appeared to be the case in these programmes. A director in programme 1 stated, ‘as you know, our university is very selective. The students have high scores on all sections of (the nationwide university entrance exam), including English’. The director went on to state that the students had had enough of the teacher-focussed classroom in high school and were ready to take ownership of their English language learning journey.
Discussion
The themes uncovered through this inquiry offer some points of consideration and discussion within the East Asian academic writing context. Overall, we found that academic writing programmes need to interact with academics to be fully functional. Programmes 1 and 2 appear to enjoy better operation and guidance because of this dynamic. This topic is also related to standardization of the programmes using academically sound pedagogy. It was another vital component of a successful programme. This, however, comes with a caveat that external pressure from standards that are pushed on instructors without collaboration can have negative affective effects which can take away from its benefits to the curriculum. The data suggest that a balance of power between the two collaborative groups of academics and teachers needs greater examination. Programme 1 demonstrated that a positive environment that fosters mutual respect can be achieved, but the limitations of this inquiry suggest an academic need for further investigation into how this environment is implemented in practice.
Furthermore, the relationship between the observed proficiency of students within these East Asian programmes and the choice of instruction at the classroom level was a factor of the success of the writing programmes’ curricula at each university. This includes establishing good interdepartmental lines of communication and employing en vogue curricula and teaching methods. In our view, students’ higher proficiency and past learning experiences drive this. As for the execution of teachers’ approaches in the classroom and planning thereof, our inquiry points to proficiency being the driving factor with lower proficiency settings being more suited for PPP-style instruction (teacher-centric) and higher proficiency settings being more appropriate for student-led/task-based approaches, such as TTT (Willis and Willis, 2007).
As with all research, we must consider the limitations and constraints that our inquiry contained. While it is a criticism of some qualitative work that robustness can only be achieved with longitudinal studies with a high rate of participation, it must be stressed that we have approached this inquiry as reflective practitioners from an inquiry stance. Case studies, and for that matter, practitioner-as-researcher paradigms stress that inquiries at the professional development level can expand our understanding of our practice and connect it with the pedagogical theories that underpin it (McKernan, 2013).
Moreover, with regards to our approach and the stakeholders involved in this inquiry, we are aware that perhaps student feedback in the programmes may have better contextualized our findings. Still, this initial inquiry was a small-scale case study from an inquiry stance, based solely on curricula design and teachers that employ the curricula in their classrooms. Perhaps other studies of an action research nature with an implementation element, a method we hope to pursue in our further investigation into effective writing programmes, would be more suitable for this type of data.
Overall, Reason and Bradbury (2001) suggest that research such as this small-scale case study is an ‘evolutionary’ process of not only an individual, but within a community of practice. As research is increasingly undertaken by practitioners within the broader education field, so too, must English language instructors follow suit. Researchers in language teacher education are encouraging the support of teaching candidates’ education in practitioner inquiry, especially within TESOL/ELT (Motha et al., 2012). In general, the field of English language instruction has broadened its academic status among other sectors of education. We must at once bridge these two fields of inquiry and practice (as evidenced from this inquiry), but also embrace practitioner research as one method of achieving collaboration and communication between the two camps.
This inquiry also suggests that other research approaches into increasing interaction between academics and instructors could directly contribute to the increased efficacy of EAP writing programmes in East Asian contexts. Action research that included reflection on the evaluation of a programme (similar to ours), or that included an intervention within a university’s faculty, could broaden the scope of understanding the benefits of researcher and instructor interaction that we uncovered.
As a concluding thought, we posit that the three themes that this inquiry uncovered could work as general components of EAP writing curricula design and implementation oversight. For example, programmes where curricula were informed by inter-departmental dialogue are more effective than curricula that were not. In the aggregate, programme 1 seemed to be the most effective because it conformed to best practices in each of the three themes. Programme 3, conversely, appeared to have the most issues because of deficiencies in the three themes. Being a small case study, however, further research is needed to fully explore the conclusion that this inquiry suggests. Thinking of one possible area, future research could investigate whether the CEFR or the ACTFL is the better framework for external standardization.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.