In a higher education (HE) landscape that is becoming increasingly internationalised and diversified, the importance of inclusive teaching practices, particularly in the context of English for Academic Purposes (EAP), is gaining growing international attention. While comprehensive frameworks and strategies are developed through educational…

The Academic Word List (AWL) is now widely used in English for academic purposes (EAP) classrooms in many countries, in a wide range of materials, in vocabulary tests, and as a major resource for researchers. In this article the author reflects on the impact of the AWL by looking at commonly asked questions about the list: What is the AWL? Is the…

This paper argues that we know too little of the mental processes in which a listener engages during an academic lecture; and that a better understanding of these processes would assist EAP instructors on pre-sessional courses to target their teaching more precisely. The account provides insights into listener behaviour from three possible…

Robert Courchene's 1996 article entitled "Teaching Canadian Culture: Teacher Preparation" sparked a conversation in the pages of the "TESL Canada Journal" that continues today. From advocating the teaching of significant historical events and icons to encouraging second-language learners to embrace cultural ambiguity, there is…

While programs have been established to support secondary level English Learners (ELs) in their transition to institutions of higher education (IHEs), limited attention has been given to how to support adult ELs who struggle with the academic language demands of their college or university content-area courses. Research indicates that many EL…

This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of teaching English for work purposes to undergraduate students at higher schools in Poland, and is the result of the authors' experience as teachers of English at AGH University of Science and Technology in Cracow, Poland. It is argued that building special work-related syllabuses for…

This article considers the notion of "academic vocabulary": the assumption that students of English for academic purposes (EAP) should study a core of high frequency words because they are common in an English academic register. We examine the value of the term by using Cox-head's (2000) Academic Word List (AWL) to explore the distribution of its…

ESP genre research has generated numerous descriptions and explanations of discipline-specific genre exemplars and has produced various pedagogical proposals. However, what learners learn from these genre descriptions and the resulting pedagogical proposals and how they develop as learners and writers of genres in ESP genre-based writing pedagogy…

The way we use words to discuss complex phenomena such as writing for scholarly publication matters greatly, particularly if we are distinguishing between EAL writers and English L1 gatekeepers. In this response to Flowerdew, I argue that using Goffman's concept of stigma to discuss possible discrimination against EAL writers serves only to…

This paper deals with an underdeveloped notion in the EAP sub-discipline of contrastive rhetoric: culture. It argues that a better conceptualization of contrastive rhetoric needs to include a better conceptualization of culture. After engaging with the complex question "What is culture?" the paper moves on to consider four sets of current issues…

The promise of evidence-based policy is that social scientific research can lead to rational planning that will lead to improved outcomes and life chances for people across the whole spectrum of social provision. This article argues that evidence is politically mobilised to legitimise the reproduction of racial and social advantage and construct…

Argues that descriptive writing has an important role in disciplinary learning for novice students and that discussion of critical analysis and critical thinking in tertiary learning could benefit from a linguistic perspective on how critical analysis is realized in student writing. (Author/VWL)

Discipline-specific approaches to English for Academic Purposes (EAP) tend to overlook the purposes of the disciplines themselves and the issue of transferability from academic to professional contexts. This becomes problematic in the context of the "new knowledge economy" and emergent pedagogies in higher education, which are increasingly focused…

Introduces this new journal devoted to developments and understandings in the field of English for academic purposes. Briefly sketches the context within which the journal has emerged and points to some of the issues that currently influence and confront the discipline. (Author/VWL)

Responds to a previous article in which the author of this article's work on reading subskills is critiqued. The author states that, despite the criticism of his work, he feels the critique offers a useful contribution to the debate about subskills and judgments. (JL)