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This article was downloaded by: [Northwestern University]On: 17 December 2014, At: 23:27Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
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Students’ and lecturers’ perceptions ofthe effectiveness of foreign languageinstruction in an English-mediumuniversity in TurkeyYasemin Kırkgöz a
a Çukurova University ,Published online: 14 Jan 2009.
To cite this article: Yasemin Kırkgöz (2009) Students’ and lecturers’ perceptions of theeffectiveness of foreign language instruction in an English-medium university in Turkey, Teaching inHigher Education, 14:1, 81-93, DOI: 10.1080/13562510802602640
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562510802602640
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Students’ and lecturers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of foreignlanguage instruction in an English-medium university in Turkey
Yasemin Kırkgoz*
Cukurova University
This study reports the perceptions of students and lecturers on the effectiveness ofthe foreign language instruction in relation to students’ academic needs in anEnglish-medium university in Turkey. The theoretical framework of the studydraws upon a discourse community (DC) perspective, which considers writing asa socio-cultural practice and takes a work-embedded nature to reading. Fifteenlecturers and 220 students participated in a target situation needs assessment toidentify students’ academic needs, their perception of difficulties in meeting thoseneeds, and the extent of the relevance of the students’ previous languageinstruction in meeting their academic needs.The findings reveal that a skills-based English for Academic Purposes (EAP) curriculum remains inadequate inpreparing students effectively for the academic requirements. Multi-dimensionalnature of needs analysis is highlighted, and several innovative suggestions areproposed within the DC framework to improve the EAP curriculum.
Keywords: multi-dimensional needs assessment; EAP; writing as a social practice;work-embedded reading; frame of reference
Introduction
Turkey, as many other non-English speaking countries e.g. China, has responded to the
global impact of English as the language of international communication, the language
of business, technology, and science by introducing English-medium education (EME)
at Higher Education with the establishment of such universities as the Middle Eastern
Technical University (METU) in 1956. As the demand for an English-medium
university education has increased, the issue of EME and questions related to effective
learning of one’s professional knowledge have constituted an important part of the
planning of education policy in Turkey. Following the policy statement issued by
the Turkish Higher Education Council in 1996, each university providing an EME, was
required to establish a foreign language centre, which would offer a one-year English
for Academic Purposes (EAP) curriculum to students whose English proficiency was
insufficient to enable them to pursue their English-medium classes.
Given the fact that increasing numbers of undergraduate students prefer to study
in English-medium rather than Turkish, and a large number of students receive an
EAP programme due to inadequacy in their level of English proficiency, it is
important to identify the efficacy of receiving EAP instruction to one’s higher
education in the medium of English. If, for example, EAP curriculum designers are
informed about the academic needs of students, and the perceived effectiveness of the
*Email: [email protected]
ISSN 1356-2517 print/ISSN 1470-1294 online
# 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13562510802602640
http://www.informaworld.com
Teaching in Higher Education
Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2009, 81�93
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EAP curriculum, based on the views of students who are currently registered to such
programmes, and those of the lecturers, they can then design English language
instruction accordingly. It is, therefore, important to recognise that needs analysis of
the students’ academic context provides a basis for evaluating the extent of the
effectiveness of an EAP curriculum in meeting students’ academic needs and
providing valuable data for the curriculum development process (West 1994).
The context
The study was conducted at Cukurova University, which offers English-medium
instruction in three faculties. In the Department of Economics and Business
Administration (DECOBA) at least 40% of the courses are delivered in English;
the Mechanical Engineering (ME) and Electrics-Electronics Engineering (EEE)
Departments offer all their courses in English. The Centre for Foreign Languages
(CFL), established to meet the English language requirements of the university,
provides a one-year EAP curriculum. In this respect, CFL has undertaken a
mediating role in initiating students into their respective English-medium depart-
ments. The curriculum offers integrated skills practice, using a series of commercially
available course-books, supported by additional teaching materials (Kırkgoz 2006).
The prevailing institutional assumption about a skills-based curriculum remains
vested in the notion that skills acquired will be transferable to the academia.
This study challenges such conventional thinking to skills-based EAP curriculum
design and presents a discourse community (DC) perspective, which takes a social
constructivist view to writing, work-embedded practice to reading, and emphasising
the need to initiate students through various practices before they become members
of their academic discourse community (ADC), to argue that the former limits our
understanding of the nature of language and communication practices in disciplin-
ary communities.
Theoretical framework
The notion of academic discourse community
In this study, the concept of DC provides a conceptual framework for investigating
the social practices that determine students’ academic needs, and providing a basis
for discussing and analysing the data. As Woodward-Kron (2004), noted without
adequate means of conceptualising a DC, course designers risk making connections
about students’ disciplinary practices, e.g. reading and writing for specific disciplin-
ary contexts.
Swales (1990) describes a DC as a group of individuals that have broadly agreed
common goals, and a system of communication to achieve these goals. Members of a
DC share the knowledge of a discipline through the resources of a specialised
language. A DC possesses genres, e.g. professional journals, which ‘package
information in ways that conform to a discipline’s norms and values’ (Berkenkotter
and Huckin 1993, 476). It has expert members and novices entering the community.
A suitable level of shared knowledge, specialised discourse competence, and
familiarity with conventions of a DC is expected from the new members so that
they can effectively participate in the practices of the community (Swales 1990).
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Based on the above-mentioned characteristics, each academic discipline, within
the context of this study, will be considered an ADC, which has chosen English as
the medium of instruction, through which disciplinary knowledge is conveyed.
Within each ADC, lecturers have responsibility for transmitting professionalknowledge to students. Textbooks and journal articles are the main sources of
written genres students are expected to consult; whilst lectures constitute the main
spoken genres, which mediate the in-flow of information. Becoming an acceptable
member of an ADC requires an understanding of particular discipline-specific
conventions unanimously agreed by community members, and discourse features
including subject-specific lexis, so that new members may communicate with experts
on the basis of shared level of understanding.
The following section focuses on the nature of writing and reading, as practicedwithin an ADC.
Writing as a social practice
Writing, practiced within a specific ADC, will be viewed as a contextualised social
practice (Bizzell 1982, 1992; Coffin et al. 2003; Carry and Lillis 2003; Lea and Street
2000; Lillis 2001), reflecting the reality, knowledge, conventions of academia (Swales
1990), rather than merely a transferable skill due to the following reasons noted by
Carry and Lillis (2003):
First, within the social constructivist framework, student writing is embedded
within relationships around teaching and learning, which influence the extent to
which students come to write successfully. Second, the conventions governing whatconstitutes appropriate academic writing are social to the extent that ‘these have
developed within specific academic disciplinary communities over time as a social
practice’ (Carry and Lillis 2003, 11). Third, student writing is a social practice in that
students, as writers, are learning not only to communicate in particular ways, but are
learning how to take on a new social identity, i.e. to write as engineers or economists.
Considered within the above framework, becoming a member of an ADC requires
more than learning the basic writing skills. It requires students’ familiarity with the
social dimensions of writing to ensure that their writings can be consistent with theconventions of a DC (Bizzell 1982), and meet the expectations of lecturers. Thus,
student writers need to be supported to familiarise them with writing conventions
involved in different genres, i.e. reports, projects, as each requires different writing
and thinking skills before being initiated into their respective ADC (Creme and Lea
2001) to ‘ensure that their writing falls within . . . (the) range of acceptable writing
behaviours dictated by the academic community’ (Horowitz 1986, 789).
Work-embedded reading
Kırkgoz (1999), based on an investigation conducted in an English-medium
university in Turkey, describes the kind of reading practiced as work-embedded
reading (WER), which is associated with the requirements of the academiccommunity to perform an identifiable task, i.e. writing a report, the conventions
for which exist in ADC. Since the reading in question is initiated by a given task, it is
purposeful in nature, and requires an effective access to the specialised information
in the texts that students have to consult. Although reading is a personal matter,
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individual reading is embedded in communally recognised practices since knowledge
and texts are constructs generated by community members sharing common ideas.
Based on this notion, efficient access to disciplinary information requires more
than ordinary reading skills; it requires a WER approach in which reading texts and
tasks replicate those which students face in academic classes, encouraging students to
build repertoires of appropriate discourse processing strategies.
Shared frame of reference
WER also requires that the students have shared frame of reference, i.e. the ability to
share meanings with authors of the texts on the topics of their specialist discipline to
enable them to engage in discourse with the authors of the texts. As Northedge
(2003) remarks:
it is through repeatedly sharing in meaning making with speakers of the specialistdiscourse that students come to internalise the frames of reference which are taken forgranted within the knowledge community. (173)
Frame of reference is not limited to reading; it also includes writing, lectures and
conversations. Being a member of a community requires an ability to share frames of
reference in conversation with lecturers. Likewise, learners need to have the capacity
to frame and generate specialist meaning in their writings to the extent that these are
shared and accepted by members of their ADC.
It may therefore be argued that the acquisition of ‘shared frame of reference’ that
is essential to become an effective member of a DC to conduct one’s undergraduate
studies in an English-medium university in an English as a Second Language (ESL)/
English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, requires more than the ability to read
and write effectively. The writing and reading practiced in a typical skills-building
programme, as in CFL, particularly for students beyond the beginner level of
proficiency, is unlikely to help learners handle the actual requirements of their
disciplinary courses, because the conventions governing what counts as academic
reading and writing are assumed to be part of the ‘common sense’ knowledge
students have and are thus not explicitly taught within the EAP programme.
Acquisition of a range of skills forms only the foundation for the academic literacy.
To build upon this foundation, students must adapt to both the academic and social
culture of their respective ADC. As stated by Northedge (2003, 171), learning in an
English-medium DC can be seen as a process of acquiring the capacity to participate
in the specialist discourse of a knowledge community.
Target situation needs assessment
Several studies were conducted to the nature of academic conventions through
various needs assessments. The underlying reason for needs analysis is that by
identifying elements of students’ target needs and using them as the basis of EAP/
English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instruction, students will be provided with the
requirements of their disciplinary courses. Without such investigations, curriculum
developers often tend to intuit the future needs of the students, which may result in
limited success.
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Many studies focused on determining students’ target needs; for example, Ferris
(1998) surveyed the views of university professors on the difficulties that L2 students
experience with listening and speaking tasks. In addition, there were surveys
conducted to identify university students’ academic writing tasks (Johns 1981; Kroll1979). Another study by Horowitz (1986) analysed university writing assignments to
pinpoint what is required in the process of completing assignments with resulting
implications to designing an EAP curriculum. In the same vein, studies were
conducted to ascertain perceptions of L2 students about the importance of language
skills and classroom tasks (Christison and Krahnke 1986; Ferris 1998). Adopting a
‘social-contextual approach’, Bizzell (1982) attempted to familiarise basic writers
with the convention of an academic discourse, emphasising what it is that students
must learn to become a member of target community through a process of initiation.
Identifying learners’ lexical needs has been another notable area of growth in
needs analysis. Developments in the use of computers have enabled compiling a
corpus of texts, as a valuable source of information for identifying the lexical needs
of learners and developing language teaching materials (Kırkgoz 2006).
This study is an insightful application of the target needs assessment to the
specific context of the research, a Turkish university. It aims to identify the students’
target academic requirements from ‘multi-dimensions’, i.e. lecturers and first-year
undergraduate students, and relate them to the perceptions of students and lecturersin order to evaluate the effectiveness of the English language instruction that the
students previously received in relation to meeting their target academic needs.
The study is guided by the following questions:
1. What are the first-year undergraduate students’ perceptions of their academic
task requirements in their English-medium classes and the difficulties they
encounter in meeting those requirements?
2. What are the first-year undergraduate students’ perceptions of the effective-
ness of the EAP curriculum in preparing them effectively for their English-
medium classes?
3. What are the requirements of the lecturers from the students in their courses
and their perceptions of the students’ performances in relation to theserequirements?
Methods
Target situation needs assessment was conducted with first-year undergraduate
students (N�220) who were pursuing their studies in their respective departments of
the university offering English-medium instruction after completing the one-year
EAP programme, and 15 lecturers teaching subject courses, employing question-naires and interviews.
Interviews and questionnaires with students
A questionnaire was designed to obtain information on:
1. the frequency of the various academic tasks the students are required to carry
out; and
2. their perceived effectiveness in meeting those requirements.
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The design of the questionnaire was informed from needs analyses conducted
previously (Kırkgoz 1999), and from Ferris (1998) to suit the local context. The 19-
item survey questionnaire comprised statements concerning various academic tasks,
focusing on each of the macro-skill areas (listening, speaking, reading and writing,
respectively) which the students are currently expected to fulfil in their academic
departments. Students had to indicate their answers on a four-point Likert scale, on
which value 1 represented ‘never’, and value 4 ‘always’. In the part of the
questionnaire inquiring about students’ perceived effectiveness in meeting those
requirements, participants were asked to indicate their perceptions on a four-point
Likert scale, on which value 1 represented ‘not effective at all’, and value 4 ‘very
effective’. Each section of the questionnaire also included an open-ended question,
where respondents were invited to write additional comments. Questionnaires were
administered towards the end of the academic year to ensure that the students were
fully familiar with the requirements of their academic departments.
As a follow-up to questionnaires, I conducted semi-structured interviews with
volunteer students (N�120) across the three English-medium departments to
discuss their experiences in university classes and express the perceived effectiveness
of the EAP curriculum.
Interviews with faculty lecturers
Survey findings were complemented by interviews with lecturers (N�15) teaching
subject courses to the first-year students, of whom four were from the ME, five from
the EEE and six from DECOBA. The questions in the interview focused on what
kinds of tasks/projects the lecturers required from the students and how the students
performed in relation to these requirements.
Data analysis
The interviews were recorded, transcribed and then translated in L2. Data were
analysed qualitatively through a process of pattern-coding (Miles and Huberman
1994) to find the recurrent themes. Data from the 220 completed questionnaires were
analysed through the computation of descriptive statistics, except hand-written
comments which were also subject to content analysis.
The following sections present findings from the target situation assessment in
line with each research question addressed.
Discussion of findings
Expected academic tasks requirements in English-medium academic classes, and
students’ perceptions of their own difficulties in meeting those requirements
Table 1 shows the most frequently required academic tasks in the three departments,
based on the overall frequencies in response to 19 survey items, of which 10 were
found to be high in frequency. Of the 220 students who responded to the survey
questionnaire, 62 were from EEE, 78 from ME, and 80 from DECOBA, representing
a fairly even student spread across the three departments.
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As seen in Table 1, approximately, 95.4% of the respondents reported that
following the lecturer’s instructions during the academic classes was a regular
requirement (80% always or 15.4% often). In a lecture, students were expected to do
note-taking and writing summaries using notes (6.8% often and 75% always).
Concerning speaking, 81.8% of the students reported that they were required to
participate in class discussions by asking and answering questions (30% always or
51.8% often) and 80.9% expressing opinions (20% always and 60.9% often).As far as reading is concerned, the results show that all departments require
students to read various publications � textbooks, articles and lecture notes � on a
topic to express their own opinion effectively (22% often and 70% always), and guess
the meanings of unfamiliar words from the context (67.2% always or 20% often). Not
surprisingly, social science majors needed relatively stronger English language skills
in reading a variety of texts on a topic to express their own meaning.
The major writing requirements that students were required to produce were
answering examination questions (86.3% always and 8.1% often), summary writing
(72.7% always and 3.6% often), and integrating information from different sources into
different writings, e.g. project writing (62.7% always and 33.6% often). In addition,
the students in ME and EEE were expected to write laboratory reports (10% always
and 36.3% often).
The students’ assessment of their perceptions of effectiveness in meeting the
requirements of the 10 most frequently used academic tasks revealed a gap between
their present language performance and that required to fulfil them effectively. Fifty-
five percent of the students’ perceived effectiveness in following the lecturer’s
instructions was somewhat effective. The students’ perceived effectiveness in
Table 1. Students’ responses on required academic tasks.
Always Often Sometimes Never
Academic tasks requirements No. % No. % No. % No. %
Following the lecturer’s instructions
during the lesson
176 80 34 15.4 10 4.6 � �
Note-taking in a lecture and summary
writing using notes
165 75 15 6.8 33 15 7 3.2
Asking and answering questions
during lectures
66 30 114 51.8 28 12.7 12 5.5
Expressing opinions during class
discussions
44 20 134 60.9 26 11.8 14 7.3
Reading various texts on a topic to
express one’s own opinion
154 70 22 10 39 17.8 5 2.2
Guessing the meanings of unfamiliar
words from the context
148 67.2 44 20 8 3.6 20 9.2
Summarising a text 160 72.7 8 3.6 40 18.1 12 5.6
Answering exam questions 190 86.3 18 8.1 12 5.6 � �Writing a project on a topic
incorporating ideas from
various sources
138 62.7 74 33.6 3 1.3 5 2.4
Report writing 22 10 80 36.3 34 16.5 82 37.2
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answering examination questions ranged between 18% somewhat and 68% quite
effective. Although writing an essay on a topic incorporating ideas from different
sources and writing a summary of an article were required often, the students
perceived themselves somewhat effective. Most students (78%) reported that their
effectiveness in participating in class discussions was low (68% somewhat effective
and 10% not effective). Students’ handwritten comments revealed that insufficient
practice in speaking, and lack of confidence in their speaking abilities inhibited
students’ class participation and interaction with lecturers.
Students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the English for Academic Purposes
curriculum in preparing them for their academic settings
A general finding regarding both the students’ written comments and interview data
showed that most students (93.5%) perceived a gap between the requirements of
disciplinary courses and what they were taught at CFL. While feeling that the EAP
curriculum had been beneficial in language skills development, survey respondents
articulated what had been lacking, as indicated by the following statements:
Here (referring to her department) we learn disciplinary English but there (at CFL), welearned daily English. There is a big difference between the two. When we started ourdepartment we did not see much relevance of what we had studied before.
I do not think that the level of English offered there is sufficient to help us follow ourdepartmental courses. Even though we are approaching the first mid-term examinationsnow in my departments we have difficulty in understanding much of the courses.
Clearly, what the student seems to refer to in the former quotation is his being
inexperienced in the conventions of his ADC, whereas in the latter not having
attained sufficient frames of reference that would enable him to access disciplinary
knowledge, thus displaying outsider status.
Another major concern of students was related to their inability to participate in
and speak fluently in lectures. The following excerpt represents the opinion of most
students:
Due to the lack of speaking practice we are now experiencing difficulty in understandinglectures. We do not have enough confidence to speak in lectures. Participating in thelectures is a real problem for us.
This interest in more speaking practice expressed repeatedly through this survey
is clearly related to students’ lack of practice in the specialist discourse of their
discipline, as a result of which they found it too difficult to frame the meanings into
usage of the specialist discourse, and participate in their disciplinary discussions.
This dilemma can be linked to what Northedge noted (2003, 172):
students are unable to make sense of utterances they encounter because they cannotplace them within the implicit frames of reference, but equally unable to make progresswith internalizing these frames of reference because they cannot engage with theutterances through which the frames are made manifest.
Another common experience that students reported was the frustration of
opening a chapter in a disciplinary book and finding that not much in it makes sense.
They stated that although most vocabulary was familiar, they could not assign much
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meaning. The written discourse and specialised lexis did not mean much to them, as
the following interview extract demonstrates:
When I started my university classes I realised how limited my knowledge of vocabularywas. I had to look up the dictionary very often. There are lots of words which I havecome across before but I have difficulty in understanding what they mean. Thevocabulary has different meaning, here.
What the student seems to refer to above is the frame of reference which she
lacked because the terms used within her ADC did not carry sufficient meaning for
her. Clearly, students’ lack of practice in WER and the frame of reference linked with
their discipline posed serious difficulties in participating effectively in reading-related
requirements.
Similar to comments made about reading, students’ comments on their own
writing also frequently made reference to difficulties in framing meaning to put in
specialised written discourse:
EAP writing activities should deal with the materials closer to university level classes. Idid not find the content of the programme academically interesting. We were asked towrite short essays on general topics. When I started my department I encountered manydifficulties in producing writings as required by lecturers. I wish I had more challengingwriting tasks, such as research oriented projects.
This institutionally supported writing as a ‘skill’ at CFL, focussing mainly on the
‘surface features’ of writing and de-contextualising of writing skills (Creme and Lea
2001) seems to have resulted in pedagogy that privileges ‘essayist literacy’ and ‘a
particular way of constructing knowledge’ (Lillis 2001, 20). The students, therefore,
regard more challenging writing and familiarity with academic writing conventions
as a pathway towards autonomy that would enable them to handle university writing
requirements.
Another theme that emerged from the survey was enculturation difficulties that
the students experienced in the process of adjusting to being a student in a new
environment. Most students (95%) expressed their initial experiences in their
respective ADC in terms that can be characterised as culture shock, as illustrated
in the following interview extract:
When I started my department I encountered many difficulties. I was shocked by theamount of reading we were asked to do. If I had studied my major-related subjectsbefore the transition into my university class would have been less problematic.
These difficulties that students face in moving between cultural practices from
one community to another are not unique to Turkish students. Burke and
Hermerschmidt (2005) in a discussion of literacy practices in a higher education
setting in England express similar difficulties that students face while adjusting to
new cultural settings.
Taken, as a whole, then, the results indicate that these former EAP students were
largely dissatisfied with the English language instruction they received. Northedge
(2003, 172) states that ‘what undermines newcomers’ efforts to understand academic
discourse is the unspoken assumptions, which provide the frame of reference, within
which it is meaningful’. Students’ inability to make a sentence meaningful in lectures,
in reading or the difficulty in formulating appropriate ideas in their writing seems to
indicate that they do not have appropriate frames of reference within their
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repertoires after their experience with a skills-based EAP curriculum and that skills
acquired within EAP are not always transferable to students’ academic classes, and
do not have much perceivable immediate relevance.
Lecturers’ requirements from the students in academic classes and their perceptions of
the students in meeting these requirements
Interviews with 15 lecturers revealed that the students were required to carry out
similar tasks to those identified through the questionnaire. Although in general,
there was consensus in the lecturers’ opinions, their responses varied in some aspects.
Reading was rated as the most important skill followed by listening/speaking and
writing. Vocabulary was found to be a common source of difficulty, affecting
students’ speaking fluency, obstructing reading comprehension, and causing low
reading speed. Although in all departments, students were expected to participate in
class discussions, lecturers noted that students experience difficulties in under-
standing extended lectures, and complained of the low rate of student participation.
The following extract by a lecturer from DECOBA reflects the opinion of many
lecturers:
Students should be encouraged to speak more. I would like to have interactive lectures.When I ask a question there is always silence in the class. I am sure students havesomething to express but they feel reluctant to speak, feeling afraid of making mistakes.Speaking is a major problem.
As has already been revealed through the questionnaire, students of ME and
EEE were required to writer reports, and those in DECOBA, projects, as a major
writing requirement. Lecturers stated that students’ writing problems were deeper at
an ‘epistemological level’ of knowing what to say in a discipline context (Lea and
Street 1998) rather than at the surface level with grammar, etc. Since students are
assessed largely by what they write to demonstrate their mastery of disciplinary
knowledge, they need to learn not only academic conventions but also disciplinary
writing requirements. This clearly indicates that writing is not simply a set of skills
but also a social practice embedded in particular contexts and disciplinary
frameworks.
Another significant writing task was answering examination questions. While
lecturers from DECOBA noted that students are required to answer open-ended
questions, those from ME and EEE commented that examination questions
generally require students to solve mathematical problems. Lecturers emphasised
the importance of developing efficient and analytical reading, and stressed that
students’ understanding of the nature of the examination questions should be
increased. Since engineering students are commonly required to solve problems in
examinations, the interviewees stated that the accuracy of the solved problems
largely depended on how well students understood the questions, as one lecturer
highlighted:
Reading is a very significant skill. First-year mechanical engineering courses generallyrequire students to use mathematical expressions. Verbal part is very little. However, thestudents need to understand what they read to be able to solve the problems in thewritten examinations.
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Target needs analysis and perceptions of students’ and lecturers have provided
insight into the academic practices of learners in three EME. Findings reveal that the
curriculum, as it stands, does not appropriately prepare students for the academic
experience and an exclusive focus on skills development leads to students becomingrestrictive members of their ADC.
Implications for the EAP curriculum
Three pedagogical suggestions have emerged to account for the perceived gap
between the demands of students’ disciplinary communities and the EAP pro-
gramme.
Socialising students into academic writing
Based on the interpretation of the survey results and considering the concept of
ADC and socialisation process described earlier, the methodological framework ofthe EAP writing curriculum can be conceptualised within the social constructivist
framework following Lea and Street’s models (1998, 2000), which recognises three
cycles in student writing:
Cycle 1 focuses on the acquisition of skills, that is, ‘surface features’ of writing
(Creme and Lea 2001), e.g. spelling, punctuation and grammar.
In Cycle 2, student writers need to go beyond merely writing the basics. They
need to be supported to explore the writing conventions of different academic
writings, know what is required of them, and develop strategies they might use tomeet those requirements. As suggested by Coffin et al. (2003), EAP instructors need
to demystify what, precisely, is a report and develop parallel examples for the text
types with which students will be involved in their ADC.
Cycle 3 is the stage of replicating in EAP classrooms the characteristics of real
university writing assignments helping students acquire academic literacy practices
of different disciplinary text types, and developing strategies in academic socialisa-
tion. As recommended by Lea and Street (1998), students need to work on genuine
pieces of work ‘in context’ related to their subjects of study. Additionally, sampleexamination questions from the three departments of the university need to be
obtained to examine examination scripts to familiarise students with question types
they are likely to face in their disciplinary classes.
In this way, students would not only develop effective writing skills, they would
also be helped to acquire the capacity to frame meanings which would enable them
to engage in a disciplinary discourse, and adapt smoothly to the social milieu of their
academic environment. Since EAP writing teachers may have little subject-specific
knowledge, the responsibility for student’s academic writing requirements, particu-larly in Cycles 2 and 3, above, might be shared between language teachers taking
responsibility for the specific academic skills development and subject specialists to
assist with disciplinary writing requirements.
Meeting students’ reading and lexical requirements
EAP teachers have a crucial role in enabling students to access written disciplinary
discourse and acquire the meaning of specialist lexis. An effective way to design
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appropriate reading materials and identify students’ lexical requirements is to
establish a specialised corpus, consisting of the written texts that first-year students
are expected to read in different disciplines. Using the corpus as a database, WER
can be replicated in EAP classes by developing reading texts and designing tasks
similar to those in disciplinary communities. The corpus-based reading would help
students in building-up frames of reference related to their disciplinary knowledge on
themes which are typical of first-year university classes, familiarise students with the
specialised lexical items and foster appropriate discourse processing strategies
(Kırkgoz 2006).
Managing enculturation difficulties
In the process of enculturation, EAP students’ cultural adjustment can be managed
in several ways. Johns (1988) advocates training students in ethnographic methods to
assist them to participate in the cultural and epistemological practices of their
respective ADCs. One possibility in which students can gain such skills is through
organising field trips from the familiar discourse in EAP into the specialist discourse,
which may enable the students to visit their intended ADC and attend lectures to
explore what it means for them to be an actual member of an ADC (Kırkgoz 2006).
Such trips would also help in the socialisation process, promoting social interaction
with members of ADC. Alternatively, lecturers can be invited from the students’
ADC to deliver introductory lectures at CFL. Such practices would also contribute
towards closing the gap that students experienced in the performance of oral
communication by helping students to practice various listening/speaking activities,
and with strategies for asking and responding to lecturers’ questions, thereby helping
students to internalise sufficient shared frame of references related to their
disciplinary knowledge.
By incorporating the above suggested innovations into the EAP curriculum for
students beyond the beginner level of proficiency, it is expected that the curriculum
can serve more effectively to meet the target needs of the students who must make
the transition from English language learners to subject-specific English users.
Conclusion
This paper has described perceptions of the students and lecturers on the
effectiveness of the foreign language instruction in meeting students’ disciplinary
requirements in an English-medium university in Turkey. The findings demonstrate
that an overly skills-based EAP curriculum remains inadequate in preparing students
effectively for their academic requirements. The suggested approach constitutes a
shift in emphasis from a skills-based curriculum to a discourse-community driven
philosophy that goes beyond the concept of teaching languages for skills develop-
ment to considering writing as a social practice, taking a work-embedded nature to
reading, and emphasising the need to initiate students through various practices.
The present study has been concerned with one English-medium university.
However, it may be suggested that the findings have implications that extend beyond
the context to which it refers to include other English-medium universities in Turkey
and other countries where similar situations exist.
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