The Success of an EAP Programme in Tertiary Education: Using a Student-Centric Approach to Scaffold Materials in an EAP

Abstract

Researchers and practitioners who focus on academic writing in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses have reported on the need to equip students with the necessary knowledge and skills to deal with academic writing across different disciplines in tertiary education (Rinnert & Kobayashi, 2005; Shi, 2011; Thompson, 2013). Previous research (e.g., Crosthwaite, 2016) has predominantly measured students’ progress in an EAP by comparing students’ pre- and post-course scores of individual language/writing skills. Much less has been reported on the effectiveness of a detailed EAP curriculum design that scaffolds skills in stages. This study contributes to the current EAP research by examining holistically the impact of a 12-week EAP course that adopts a reading-to-write, student-centric approach to scaffold progressively difficult writing skills/knowledge to help students acquire academic writing skills by focusing on three core skills: language, text organisation, and content development. The data of this study show students’ perceptions of their writing abilities and the significant improvement in academic writing skills before and after completing the course.