UNIVERSIDAD TECNOLÓGICA

EMPRESARIAL DE
GUAYAQUIL
Maestría en enseñanza del idioma inglés como
lengua extranjera

English for academic purposes

AUTONOMOUS WORK #1

Verónica Michelle Chicaiza Ojeda

October 9th, 2022
 English for academic purposes refers to the language and associated practices that people

need in order to undertake study or work in English medium higher education, thus the main goal

of the EAP course is to support these people learn features about linguistic and cultural areas,

mainly institutional and disciplinary practices involved in studying or working through the medium

of English (Gillett, 2022) Furthermore, is the particular language that is required for successful

integration into the academic community, covering areas of grammar, punctuation, syntax. Due to

this, an interview was administered to university students, which contained the following

questions.

¿Cuál es tu nivel de inglés?

-A1

-A2

-B1

-B2

-C1

¿En qué situaciones crees que utilizaras el inglés?

-Leer artículos científicos

-Escribir ensayos

-Estudios universitarios

-Como pasatiempo

¿Cuál es tu motivación para aprender inglés?

-Por trabajo

-situaciones sociales

-Reuniones y debates

-Estudios universitarios

¿Consideras que aprender inglés te servirá para fines académicos? ¿En qué manera?
¿Qué estudias o vas a estudiar en la Universidad?

¿Qué consideras más fácil cuando aprendes inglés?

¿Qué consideras más difícil cuando aprendes inglés?

¿Qué actividades te gustaría que tu maestro implemente en clases de inglés?

¿Cuál ha sido tu mejor experiencia en el aprendizaje del inglés?

¿Cuál ha sido tu peor experiencia en el aprendizaje del inglés?

 It is important to mention that Lepetit and Cichocki (2022) allude to needs analysis

as a powerful tool that helps clarify and validate true needs. It enables educators and

practitioners to shape the curriculum development that bases the content of language courses

on the communication needs, wants, and interests of the learners. The interview was applied

to 10 university people, who are between A2 and B2 levels, studying law, mathematical

engineering, applied chemistry, and medicine. Regarding the first question, most of the

participants consider that in certain situations they would use English in their careers such as

for their university studies and reading scientific articles, while the rest of the population said

that they would use English as a hobby and in writing essays. Based on this, it can be said

that their main motivation is to study English for their university studies, and for work,

however, it should also be considered that the minority is due to social situations, or because

they simply like to understand another language that they would use in meetings or debates.

On the other hand, they consider that learning EAP will help them to read various types of

scientific documents since most of the important ones are in English, and when they learn

academic English it will make it easier for them to understand them, and also to obtain

international degrees, masters or doctorates, They also stated that learning EAP improves the

possibility of research and abstraction, in addition to those some participants commented that

it is also very useful to understand several scientific journals. As we can see the majority of

participants recognize the importance of English for academic purposes, therefore it should

be noted that in practice not everything is simple, for this reason we asked questions focused

on this aspect, where the interviewees said that the most difficult thing when learning English

is the listening skill, since the words are pronounced differently than what is written, The

speaking skills are also involved, but on the other hand, it is complicated for them to learn a

lot of vocabulary, which in EAP is fundamental. Besides, grammar, verbs, and writing are

aspects that most of them consider easy to learn. Thus, teachers should take into account each
characteristic or each skill is taught differently and choose new methodologies and teaching

methods, for this the participants allude that the teacher should speak more slowly in English

to be able to understand, also playful activities, implement songs, gamification as Kahoot and

debates. Additionally, one of the best experiences of students when learning English has been

to understand grammar perfectly, practice listening skills through songs, and talk with native

speakers but there are negative experiences which have been activities where writing skills

are taught since they do not like to write biographies, also teachers do not apply

methodological strategies, fill the book, and in some songs, they do not understand because

their speech is quite fast. For all these reasons, EAP students should not only recognize and

use academic linguistic structures, but they should also be aware of the context in which they

are going to use them since they are university students, where they can write essays, make

presentations or take exams such as the TOEFL, FCE, which require academic English.

Bibliography

Gillett, A. J. (2022). What is EAP? UEfAP. http://www.uefap.com/bgnd/eap.htm