Student support and teacher education in English for Academic Purposes and English Medium Instruction: Two sides of the same coin?

1. Introduction

The massive increase in the use of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in universities around the world has been accompanied by an ever-growing body of publications. The majority focus on EMI policies, teacher identities, and teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards EMI, whilst there seems to be little research into pedagogical approaches to language and literacy support for students as well as into practices in EMI teacher education, areas that are fundamental to the successful delivery of EMI. Recommendations come predominantly from conceptual papers (e.g. Dafouz, 2018, 2021; Galloway & Rose, 2021; Lasagabaster, 2018), and it is noticeable that some of these papers, in line with other EMI publications, rarely draw on English for Academic Purposes (EAP), a field that offers a rich set of theories and practices relating to student support and teacher education that are based on a decades-old research history.

It is unclear why EMI scholars do not take into consideration some of EAP's theoretical and pedagogical insights. One reason may be that EMI in higher education is regarded by some as a new phenomenon, for which the older field of EAP – which has traditionally provided English language instruction in Anglophone universities around the world – is irrelevant. This perception may be enforced by the geographical distinction between EMI in Anglophone and non-Anglophone countries, which is evident in Macaro's (2018) definition of EMI as ‘the use of English language to teach academic subjects (other than English itself) in countries or jurisdictions where the first language (L1) of the majority of the population is not English’. This distinction may give the impression that EAP approaches to student support and teacher training are unsuitable for EMI settings as they are seen as closely associated to Anglophone contexts, and that therefore different approaches are needed for the new phenomenon of EMI. A recent publication expressed this position by stating ‘EMI research is in a relative stage of infancy in terms of understanding how to confront students’ academic and language-related challenges’ (Galloway & Rose, 2021, p. 36). The same ‘new phenomenon’ perception pertains to EMI teacher education, which, according to Yuan (2021, p. 4), ‘is still in its infancy’.

A second reason for the lack of attention to EAP in the EMI literature may be the widespread use in Anglophone universities of EAP as the label for all sorts of generic academic English and study skills courses, a misconception that might have led many to disregard EAP as an appropriate theoretical and pedagogical framework for EMI contexts. Even among those EMI scholars who do advocate cross-fertilisation and collaboration between EMI and EAP scholarship (e.g. Dafouz, 2021; Schmidt-Unterberger, 2018; Yuan, 2021), certain perceptions of EAP and the field from which it derived, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), can be found that do not concur with their original conceptualisations. In this paper, I wish to extend our previous argument (Wingate & Hakim, 2022) that in the areas of student support and teacher education the domains of EMI and EAP share similar concerns and challenges and can therefore be seen as two sides of the same coin, and that it would be helpful for EMI researchers and practitioners to consider the theoretical and pedagogical insights offered by EAP and its parent field, ESP.

In the following sections, I first discuss Macaro's definition of EMI and a recent defence of it, as this definition draws a dividing line between EMI and EAP contexts that potentially prevents their mutual exchange of information and knowledge. Next, I address the conceptualisations of ESP and EAP in the EMI literature with the objective of clarifying the fundamental principles of these two fields and showing their applicability to EMI contexts. I then discuss some of the EMI literature on student support and teacher education and point out concerns and challenges that EMI and EAP share. Finally, I argue that in these areas, genre theory and genre pedagogy offer a useful framework that EMI practitioners can draw on.

2. Problematising Macaro's definition of EMI

Macaro's geographic distinction between Anglophone and non-Anglophone countries reminds us of Kachru's (1985) three concentric circles model of the Inner Circle (Anglophone countries), the Outer Circle (post-colonial regions where English is used as a second and often the official language) and the Expanding Circle (countries where English is learned as a foreign language). This model has been criticised, not least by Kachru himself, as oversimplistic and is by now outdated, as in the era of globalisation and enhanced mobility, the use of English cannot be described by fixed regions. Similarly, Macaro's definition has been critiqued for creating rigid boundaries between educational contexts that have similar characteristics. As Pecorari and Malmström (2018, p. 511) point out, these boundaries downplay ‘the real and significant connections between TESOL [Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages] and EMI’. The label EMI has been applied to programmes at Anglophone universities with the justification that they have become multilingual sites in which ‘a significant percentage of students and staff are likely to be using English as a second language (L2)’ (Baker & Hüttner, 2017, p. 502).

As a response to criticisms of Macaro's definition, a recent article by Rose et al. (2021) proposes five arguments in ‘a research-informed defence for maintaining an explicit definition of EMI that refers to English medium educational practices in predominantly non-Anglophone contexts’ (pp. 1–2), which I will address in turn. The first argument is that Macaro's definition ‘fortifies links to historical terminology in educational research’. The authors explain that ‘[T]he term has been traditionally used to problematise the teaching of subject matter in English to student populations in colonial contexts, where other dominant languages are available’. This argument is largely based on a paper by Evans (2017), who discusses language policies in the former crown colony of Hong Kong. However, Evans uses EMI as a technical term to describe how English became one of two languages of instruction in the colonial system. If Evans's matter-of-fact use of the term EMI represents ‘historical terminology’, the history involved is clearly linked to the fields of ESP and EAP. Educational research related to English-medium teaching in Hong Kong has long been in the hands of ESP and EAP scholars, represented by eminent figures such as John Flowerdew and Ken Hyland. That Hong Kong and other colonial regions have traditionally been regarded as the domain of ESP/EAP is also evident in Dudley-Evans and St John (1998, p. 35), who include in the four ‘situations in which ESP is taught’ the colonial one, that is ‘[E]ducation at all levels has been mainly in English; the Civil Service uses English, but people mostly use their first language in everyday life’. Therefore, if postcolonial regions are included in the EMI-sphere defined by Macaro, their long ESP/EAP history of research and practice should at least be acknowledged. Also, they need to be clearly distinguished from more recent EMI contexts, as I will discuss next.

Rose et al. (2021, p. 3) conclude their first argument by stressing that the historical dimensions are important ‘in guiding research into “medium of instruction” issues in education to ensure EMI environments are comparable in research’. In fact, comparability forms their overarching case for the demarcation between Anglophone and non-Anglophone countries, as without it, ‘the field will encourage poorly defined comparative research’ (Rose et al., 2021, p. 1). However, comparability is exactly what would speak against the inclusion of Hong Kong or other post-colonial regions into EMI. It was Evans (2017, p. 69) himself, who, although conceding a number of parallels, pointed out that ‘the nature, origins and trajectory of EMI in Hong Kong and other Outer Circle societies differ markedly from their counterpart in Expanding Circle Europe’. The extent of parallels and differences between EMI in Europe and post-colonial contexts might be similar to that between European and Anglophone contexts, which would make comparisons within Macaro's EMI sphere as difficult as those between EMI and Anglophone contexts.

The second argument proposed in defence of Macaro's definition is that it ‘acknowledges EMI as a designated policy decision, whether by top-down policy makers or grassroots educational stakeholders’ (Rose et al., 2021, p. 2). This argument, again, does not apply to postcolonial regions. As Willans (2022) explains, higher education in these regions ‘has typically only ever been available through the language of the former colonisers’ (p. 546), a system she calls ‘old EMI’. In other words, English as the default language has always been the only option for students in these regions, ‘rather than a neoliberal choice’ (p. 547) as is the case in ‘new EMI’. This means that within Macaro's EMI-sphere, comprising old and new EMI, there is little comparability in the area of policy making.

Rose et al. (2021, p. 3) propose as their third argument that Macaro's definition ‘recognises contextual differences in students’ English language proficiency, and guides curriculum developers and practitioners to address language needs’. As the authors explain, EMI programmes often admit students with fairly low English language proficiency whilst Anglophone universities employ gatekeeping measures through language tests such as IELTS (International English Language Testing System). However, despite the admission tests, insufficient language proficiency that impedes the learning of content knowledge is a problem that Anglophone universities have also been facing as a result of their growing internationalisation. A substantial part of the ESP/EAP literature deals with language difficulties experienced by L2 students, and the focus of these domains is very much on ‘the importance to address the language needs of all students learning through their L2’ (Rose et al., 2021, p. 4). A small difference between the two contexts is that students in some EMI contexts may have considerably lower proficiency than students admitted to Anglophone universities and therefore need more general English language instruction before or at the beginning of their study. However, a greater challenge that the two contexts have in common is the development of students’ academic literacy, as I will explain later.

The fourth argument is that EMI ‘acknowledges differences in L1 use across settings’ (Rose et al., 2021, p. 2). Whilst the authors accept that multilingual practices are also prevalent in Anglophone contexts, they refer to a range of EMI studies that have found that the L1, shared by teacher and students, is regularly used to facilitate content learning, for instance by explaining complex concepts in the L1. As the facilitative use of the L1 is rarely possible in Anglophone universities where L2 students and their teachers have no L1 in common, this argument can be accepted to some extent. However, it ignores the fact that many EMI universities accept international students from various language backgrounds, and that this restricts lecturers’ use of the L1 (see for instance McKinley et al., 2021 who report that a lecturer felt the need to apologise to international students for using Chinese).

Drawing on their umbrella argument of comparability, the authors see L1 use as an important reason for the distinction between Anglophone and EMI contexts, as otherwise research would collapse ‘important categories of multilingual language use at these universities – and may create false platforms for comparative research’ (Rose et al., 2021, p. 5). However, as discussed earlier, comparisons within EMI might represent equally false platforms because of the variation that is, as the authors recognise, ‘part and parcel of the uniqueness of EMI’ (p. 4). Rose et al. (2021, pp. 6–7) do, however, encourage some tentative comparative studies between the two settings, with the warning that there must be ‘explicit acknowledgement that such research carries with it limitations and caveats’. The same acknowledgment would be needed for within-EMI comparative research or indeed for any research. I would argue that comparisons are likely to show more similarities than differences between EMI and Anglophone contexts and that they are urgently needed to enhance knowledge exchange between EMI and ESP/EAP.

Lastly, Rose et al. (2021, p. 2) claim that Macaro's definition ‘reflects unique challenges of teacher competence and professional development (PD)’. Here, the authors refer to insufficient English language proficiency that is a problem for many EMI subject lecturers. Again, these challenges are not new and have traditionally been the remit of EAP, as stated by the founding editors in the first issue of the Journal of English for Academic Purposes:

… a related development is a concern with the English language skills of non-native English-speaking academics, especially those teaching and researching in non-English language countries where English is used as the medium of university instruction, such as Hong Kong and Singapore. (Hyland & Hamp-Lyons, 2002, p. 4)

This statement demonstrates that the issue of teachers’ linguistic competence was addressed long before EMI was conceived as a separate phenomenon. As Hyland and Hamp-Lyons explain, EAP provides training for L2 academics in both teaching and conducting research through the medium of English.

Earlier, I expressed the concern that Macaro's distinction between EMI and Anglophone contexts might lead to the disregard of ESP/EAP's theoretical and pedagogical achievements because they have traditionally been associated to Anglophone higher education. The defence article by Rose et al. (2021) reinforces this concern, as it demonstrates either a lack of awareness of, or a lack of interest in, ESP/EAP activities in the ‘old’ EMI regions. Their claims that Macaro's definition helps to guide ‘curriculum developers and practitioners to address language needs’ as well as address ‘the unique challenges of teacher competence and professional development’ also ignore existing ESP/EAP work in the areas of student support and teacher education. However, as stated earlier, the lack of acknowledgement of this work could also be the result of wide-spread misconceptions of ESP/EAP, which I address next.

3. Problematising some conceptualisations of ESP and EAP

As previously mentioned, several EMI scholars advocate cross-fertilisation between EMI and ESP/EAP. However, the use of the terms ‘ESP’ and ‘EAP’ in some publications does not align with their original concepts. Whilst some authors refer exclusively to ESP (e.g. Bocanegra-Valle & Basturkmen, 2019), others distinguish between ESP as focussing on discipline-specific language (Schmidt-Unterberger, 2018) and aiming to develop discipline-specific literacy (Perez Cañado, 2020) and, by contrast, EAP as aiming to develop skills, such as ‘academic reading and writing skills’ (Dafouz, 2021, p. 17) or other study skills. According to Dafouz (2021, p. 17), in EAP courses ‘academic language is viewed as a generic set of skills that can be acquired more or less independently of the content area where they will be used’. These authors describe differences between ESP and EAP that do not in fact exist, as EAP is a branch of ESP and has almost identical aims and characteristics, as I will show below. There also seems to be a lack of clarity about the ESP/EAP's distinctive teaching approach. This is, for example, evident in Schmidt-Unterberger's (2018, p. 529) explanation of ‘typical ESP teaching methods’, which ‘range from encouraging inductive learning and learner autonomy, to using authentic materials and tasks and process syllabi, as well as doing team teaching’. Whilst none of these claims is incorrect, they are nevertheless too unspecific, as they name general approaches associated with communicative language teaching and underplay the core approach of genre-based instruction that ESP and EAP share. Although Schmidt-Unterberger (2018, p. 529) acknowledges the ‘strong emphasis on genre analysis in ESP teaching’, she still reduces EAP to ‘one-size-fits-all’ courses on study skills and academic writing (p. 530). Clarifying the original concepts of ESP and EAP will help to show the relevance of their theories and practices for EMI settings.

Tailoring English language teaching to the specific contexts and needs of learners has been the fundamental principle of ESP since its beginnings in the 1960s. Teaching content is related to particular disciplines or occupations and based on the analysis of the language used in their activities. Through text analytical and ethnographic research, ESP identifies the genres through which specific discourse communities interact and determines how the linguistic and structural features of these genres are shaped by their communicative purposes (Swales, 1990). The pedagogical objective is to make the linguistic choices expected in these genres by the discourse community explicit to students.

EAP's objectives are identical with those of ESP, which is not surprising, because, as Hyland and Hamp-Lyons (2002, p. 2) remind us, ‘EAP has emerged out of the broader field of ESP, a theoretically and pedagogically eclectic parent’. Hyland and Hamp-Lyons go on to explain EAP and its teaching objective as follows:

English for Academic Purposes refers to language research and instruction that focuses on the specific communicative needs and practices of particular groups in academic contexts. It means grounding instruction in an understanding of the cognitive, social and linguistic demands of specific academic disciplines. This takes practitioners beyond preparing learners for study in English to developing new kinds of literacy: equipping students with the communicative skills to participate in particular academic and cultural contexts (p. 2).

This definition confirms that EAP instruction has a much wider focus than study skills, as it aims at developing the literacies that students need to access disciplinary knowledge. Bruce (2021, p. 24) confirms this aim by stating as one of EAP's characteristics ‘its concern with literacy rather than overall proficiency development’.

The existing misconceptions of EAP are likely to stem from the widespread use in Anglophone universities of ‘EAP’ as the label for general academic English courses in which the emphasis is indeed on study skills, as observed by Dafouz (2018). In this generic format, little attention can be paid to the discourses of specific disciplines, and instruction tends to focus on rhetorical and grammatical features that are believed to be common to all academic texts. However, as shall be seen later, many EAP practitioners and units have overcome the constraints of institutional policies requiring them to deliver generic courses and have developed discipline-specific approaches that are in line with the principles of ESP/EAP.

In the following sections, I consider EMI and EAP research findings and practices in the areas of student support and teacher education.

4. Student support in EMI and EAP

While it is widely acknowledged that many EMI students struggle with language proficiency issues, not much detailed information is available on the language support provided by universities. I discuss here some recent publications on support provision in East Asian universities, where EMI has been experiencing a rapid growth and where language proficiency has been reported as a particular problem. In these publications, there is consensus that EMI universities offer predominantly generic support. Chang et al. (2017) evaluated an English language support programme they developed for students taking EMI courses at a Korean university. The programme was based on needs and syllabus analyses and focused on basic academic English skills. The same workshop and tutorials were offered to EMI students across disciplines. This generic provision was criticised by some of the participants who questioned its helpfulness for their disciplinary study. In a survey of staff and students in 15 universities in China and Japan, Galloway and Ruegg (2020) observed that compulsory EAP classes and self-access study were the leading support models. As in Chang et al.'s (2017) study, the relevance of the generic EAP classes was questioned by students as well as by staff who regarded the available support as insufficient. Students felt that, in addition to the EAP courses, their content lecturers should help them with language-related problems. Zhou et al. (2022) surveyed students and staff in eight Chinese universities and found that concurrent language courses, run by an independent language centre, was the prevalent offer, followed by self-access study and preparatory language courses. However, the researchers did find ‘grassroots efforts of language scaffolding initiated by content teachers’ (p. 8). Similar to these grassroots efforts, there are reports of lecturers adjusting their content delivery to facilitate students’ understanding. For example, Chuang (2015, p. 71), a lecturer in an EMI programme in Taiwan, describes her approach of accommodating students with low language proficiency as follows: ‘the instructor presents lecture content at a slow pace, holds several engaging learning activities, employs code-switching to Chinese for important key terms/concepts/questions, simplifies lecture content with simple vocabulary terms … ’. Whilst much of the student support reported in these studies seems to be concerned with enhancing English language competence and general academic English, McKinley et al. (2021), who interviewed policy makers in eight Chinese universities, found an example of credit-bearing discipline-specific English language support that was embedded into programmes. However, this example comes from a transnational university, where the support model was perhaps imported from the Anglophone awarding institution. McKinley et al. (2021, p. 245) noticed a ‘stark difference between language support provided mainly by EAP teachers in the transnational universities, and language support less clearly defined by the Chinese universities’. In the six non-transnational Chinese universities, the need for language support was either not recognised or addressed by general English courses.

There is some recognition in the EMI literature that discipline-specific academic English support may benefit students more than the generic version. Galloway and Rose (2021, p. 35) refer to evidence from ‘a lot of research emerging from EMI contexts that points to the importance of discipline-specific classes’. This evidence comes largely from student and staff perceptions and is as such important; however, it might be useful for EMI scholars to relate this evidence to the theoretical and pedagogical insights developed over several decades in EAP. Researchers in the areas of EAP (e.g. Hyland, 2002) and Academic Literacies (e.g. Lea & Street, 1998) have long criticised generic English courses as inadequate for helping students navigate the discourse conventions of their disciplines. They have contested wide-spread assumptions underpinning generic academic English courses. For instance, that there is a common core of lexical and grammatical features that all academic texts share, that difficulties with academic reading and writing are largely experienced by certain student groups with language ‘deficiencies’, such as non-native speakers of English (e.g. Jenkins & Wingate, 2015), that these deficiencies can be remedied by courses that focus on grammar and study skills, and that the academic language and skills acquired in these courses are easily transferable to disciplinary study (Lea & Street, 1998). EAP scholars have also discussed why generic support models are preferred by university managements. As Hyland (2002, p. 387) points out, generic courses are ‘logistically undemanding, and require less skilled staff to implement’. Thus, offering such courses is a cheaper option for universities than creating the conditions for discipline-specific support, including the employment and training of more language/EAP staff to cater for the range of disciplines. Lastly, EAP researchers have long argued that student needs go beyond language competence. Whilst undoubtedly some students need general English instruction to enhance their language proficiency levels, the problem with generic English language and study skills courses is that in many universities they represent the only support available to students. This provision leaves the participating students as well as all other students unprepared for the communicative practices or literacies of their disciplines. For an adequate support model, there needs to be a wider recognition that students must be supported in the development of disciplinary or academic literacy. This is a concept that has been discussed in both the EMI and EAP literature.

The term ‘disciplinary literacy’, proposed by Airey (2011), describes an ability that all novice students, regardless of whether they are L1 or L2 speakers of English, need to develop. It is based on the understanding that many of the difficulties faced by students are created by their lack of familiarity with the epistemological and communicative practices of their chosen disciplines. Novice students need to learn how knowledge is constructed in the discipline and how it is communicated through spoken and written genres. The concept of ‘disciplinary literacy’ is equivalent to that of ‘academic literacy’ that underpins much EAP work (e.g. Murray, 2022; Wingate, 2015) or ‘academic literacies’, a term that was created by Lea and Street (1998) to signal that there is not just one type of literacy that is transferable across disciplines. The concept of academic literacy implies not only that all students must acquire it, but also that this acquisition must take place within the discipline, as generic courses cannot offer insights into disciplinary communication. Consequently, subject lecturers, who are insiders to their discipline's discourses and conventions, need to take at least some responsibility for their students’ academic literacy development (Airey, 2011; Wingate, 2018). However, as noticed by various scholars in EMI and EAP, subject lecturers tend to deny this responsibility, either because they feel that this is outside their remit (Jenkins & Wingate, 2015), receive no training or incentives (Lasagabaster, 2018), or because they have only a tacit understanding of the linguistic and communicative conventions of their disciplines (Dafouz, 2021; Jacobs, 2005). As a result, although academic literacy instruction may, to some extent, have a part in subject lecturers’ teaching practices, there is no systematic provision and no common understanding of effective ways of delivering this provision. To be able to support students systematically and effectively, most subject lecturers would require training. This is discussed further in the next section.

5. Teacher education in EMI and EAP

In EAP, teacher education is mainly directed at general English language (ELT) teachers transitioning to work in academic settings as well as at the continuous professional development of established EAP teachers. By contrast, in the EMI literature the education of ELT/EAP practitioners receives less attention than that of subject lecturers, and a common concern is their English language proficiency. This reflects a fundamental difference between the settings, as in Anglophone universities lecturers’ ability to teach in English is taken for granted, while in EMI many content lecturers switch from teaching in their L1 to delivering content through the medium of English. The large majority (77%) of EMI teacher education courses in Europe has been found to include a focus on enhancing their language skills (O'Dowd, 2018). This may be based on an assumption ‘that language proficiency in itself is sufficient to teach subjects through another language’ (Dafouz, 2018, p. 541). However, this narrow assumption is not widely accepted and the need to train subject lecturers to support students’ academic literacy development is recognised in both the EMI and EAP communities. I will discuss subject teacher education first, before considering ELT/EAP practitioners.

An approach to subject teacher education that has been widely advocated by scholars in EMI (Airey, 2011; Dafouz, 2021; Lasagabaster, 2018; Yuan, 2021) and EAP (Dudley-Evans & St John 1998; Murray, 2022; Wingate, 2015) is the collaboration between language/EAP specialists and subject lecturers. In this approach, the language specialist's role is to raise subject lecturers’ awareness of the discipline's literacy conventions and help them to identify student needs as well as ways in which these needs can be addressed. Several forms of collaboration have been recommended. Airey (2011, p. 2) suggests that discussions with language specialists help content lecturers ‘in the task of disambiguating the communicative practices of the discipline for their students’. Lasagabaster (2018) promotes team teaching as a way of raising subject lecturers’ awareness of language issues and of the role they should play in teaching discipline-specific language. Yuan (2021) proposes various ways in which language specialists can act as EMI teacher educators. For example, they can be ‘resource providers’ (p. 5) who share their teaching expertise as well as their knowledge of the relevant literature in language education with content lecturers. Dafouz and Gray (2022) name knowledge about language, knowledge about pedagogy, and knowledge about pedagogic materials as the key assets that language specialists bring to the collaboration with, and education of, subject teachers. Knowledge about language enables language specialists to identify the structural and lexico-grammatical features of discipline-specific discourse. With their pedagogical knowledge, language specialists can guide subject lecturers in moving to a more dialogic, student-centred teaching approach that integrates the teaching of content and academic literacy. Lastly, with their knowledge about pedagogic materials, language practitioners can develop teaching and learning resources that make the features of specific genres visible to subject lecturers and students. The role of language specialists in genre analysis and genre-based instruction will be discussed in more detail later.

The claims by Lasagabaster (2018, p. 412) that ‘studies on collaborative work are still in their infancy’ and by Yuan (2021, p. 2) that there is a lack of information on the collaboration between language teachers and content teachers could not be upheld if EAP research and resulting practices in Anglophone universities were considered. There is a range of studies, particularly in the Australian context (e.g. Fenton-Smith & Humphreys, 2015; Murray, 2022), that discuss collaborative activities leading to the integration of language and literacy instruction into content teaching – a model similar to CLIL that is regarded as desirable for EMI teacher education (Rose et al., 2021; Schmidt-Unterberger, 2018). In Australian universities, there is a long tradition of academic language and learning (ALL) practitioners being affiliated with specific departments where they work closely with subject lecturers to embed language and literacy support into subject curricula. According to Fenton-Smith and Humphreys (2015, p. 42), embedded support ‘refers to collaborative curriculum design which places ALL skills at the heart of a content course and is typically delivered by discipline specialists’. In this type of collaboration, language specialists play the important educational role of enabling discipline specialists to integrate language and literacy instruction into content teaching. Similar efforts have been reported from other Anglophone contexts (for an overview see Wingate, 2015). Wingate (2018) proposed six methods of integrating academic literacy development into subject lecturers’ regular teaching and assessment activities and explained how EAP teachers can support this integration. To facilitate this type of collaboration it is useful to locate EAP specialists in faculties or departments, as shown by various examples from Australian and other Anglophone universities. In line with this understanding, Dafouz (2021, p. 31) wants to see collaboration enshrined in institutional structures, arguing for ‘decentralising ESP units from the English departments at HEIs where they are usually located and placing them instead in the faculties where they can work more closely with the disciplinary experts and co-develop curricular innovations’. Murray (2022) provides an example of decentralisation in an Australian university where EAP staff were deployed to the university's four faculties. This afforded the EAP practitioners with the opportunity to gain, over time, some content knowledge as well as an in-depth understanding of disciplinary literacies. Further benefits included the recognition by staff and students that language is not peripheral to content learning but the vehicle of developing knowledge, as well as considerable improvements in the learning resources offered to students. However, decentralisation requires investment in staff recruitment and development, which is likely to be resisted by university managements in the absence of convincing student satisfaction and performance data. As I will discuss later, providing this evidence should be a common goal of EMI and EAP.

While the discussion so far has been concerned with the role that language/EAP specialists can play in the education of subject lecturers, I now consider what the training needs of the EAP specialists themselves are. This question was raised by Galloway and Rose (2021, p. 36), who point out that ELT practitioners transitioning into EMI contexts may ‘find that the traditional training they received in language acquisition and pedagogy does not prepare them to teach on, and often design, specialized EAP classes’. As Ding and Campion (2016) explain, EAP teacher education has not been given much attention in the literature, there is a limited number of programmes leading to specialist qualifications, and few universities require EAP qualifications when recruiting EAP staff. Some studies that investigated EAP practitioners’ experience with transitioning from general English teaching to EAP found that the necessary competence was acquired gradually. Basturkmen (2019) interviewed 19 experienced ESP teachers in two Spanish universities. These teachers saw materials development as an important part of their work for which they had received almost no training. Over the years, they had gained expertise by observing more experienced colleagues. The EAP teachers interviewed by Campion (2016) saw developing disciplinary knowledge and knowledge of academic conventions as the greatest challenge. As they had limited time for formal training, they engaged in a range of informal learning opportunities such as ‘learning by doing’ (p. 65) or sharing ideas with colleagues. Several studies reported in Ding and Campion (2016) revealed that EAP teachers see the development of EAP knowledge and expertise as a long-term process and therefore value ongoing professional development activities and mostly informal learning activities. None of these studies, however, mention the importance of genre analysis as a way of enabling ELT/EAP practitioners to teach students in specific disciplines, and consequently become educators of subject lecturers in these disciplines.

6. Genre analysis and genre-based literacy instruction as key frameworks for student support and teacher education

I would argue that genre analysis is the most effective access route for ELT/EAP practitioners to the communicative practices of specific academic disciplines and subsequently, the access route to developing genre-based literacy instruction for students. As novices to an academic discipline, both EAP teachers and students need to learn about the discipline's key genres, their communicative purposes and related structural and linguistic features. Once EAP practitioners have gained this knowledge, they can translate it into teaching resources for students and use it to raise the awareness of subject lecturers for whom this knowledge is often tacit.

Genre analysis consists of the analysis of genre contexts, that is, their social and communicative functions within the discipline; move analysis to identify their structural features; as well as the analysis of the lexico-grammatical choices writers make to meet the expectations related to the genre's social and communicative functions. According to Ding and Campion (2016), there seems to be little formal training in genre analysis available in EAP programmes and courses; the authors refer to only one M.A. programme that includes a genre component. However, even in the absence of formal training, the linguistic and pedagogical knowledge that EAP practitioners have acquired when qualifying as ELT teachers facilitates both genre analysis as well as developing genre-specific instruction.

Effective analysis of both genre contexts and texts requires, as Murray (2022, p. 5) states, ‘a collaborative enterprise’ between EAP teachers and subject specialists. The nature of this collaboration has been described in Tribble and Wingate (2013) and Wingate (2018), who worked with subject lecturers from a range of disciplines to develop genre-specific teaching and learning resources. The contribution of subject lecturers involved identifying target genres, that is, genres that students have to produce for assessment; providing the EAP practitioners with annotated text exemplars (graded assignments of previous student cohorts); offering advice on the assessment requirements and disciplinary conventions; as well as advising on the teaching and learning resources developed by the EAP practitioners. In addition, subject lecturers participated in the time-tabled seminars in which students worked with these resources. The information from subject lecturers as discipline insiders was crucial for enabling the EAP specialists to make sense of unfamiliar genres. This information combined with the genre analysis also served as needs analysis and was integrated in the teaching and learning resources.

This type of collaboration represents reciprocal teacher education. While EAP practitioners learn to understand disciplinary discourse practices with the help of subject specialists, at the same time they help raising subject specialists’ awareness of these practices. When collaboration extends to the creation of activities and materials for genre-based instruction, subject lecturers can also acquire methods of integrating language and literacy instruction into content teaching.

Genre-based literacy instruction means that the same situation that the EAP practitioner has experienced when identifying the purpose and features of a target genre, is mirrored for students; in other words, students are asked to become genre analysts in the same way as the EAP teacher has been initially. Johns (2011) has argued for the ‘socioliterate’ approach to genre-based instruction in which students investigate the social context and communicative purpose of genres before they engage in the linguistic analysis of genre exemplars. In the EAP classroom, this means that teachers first set tasks related to the target genre's context and then provide genre exemplars in materials designed to scaffold students’ independent genre analysis. There are several forms of scaffolding, for instance making students aware of genre features by annotations or highlights in the text (Hyland, 2007; Tribble & Wingate, 2013). Genre-based literacy instruction pays attention to lexis and grammar, areas that are known to be problematic for L2 students, in a way that is different from generic English language courses. Vocabulary and grammar are not detached from disciplinary discourses but are understood as deliberate choices that writers or speakers make to address specific audiences and genre requirements in their discipline.

While genre-based literacy instruction has been widely discussed in conceptual articles, there is to date only a limited number of reports on actual classroom practices and materials development. Some exceptions are Li et al. (2020), who describe how two novice EAP teachers implemented genre-based pedagogy for Chinese graduate students; Ellis (2004), who discusses the use of technologies in genre-based instruction; or Lee and Swales (2006), who illustrate the use of corpora for genre analysis by doctoral students. There is clearly a need for more empirical research, particularly from EMI settings where so far little attention has been paid to genre approaches.

7. Conclusion

The previous discussion has shown that the concerns and challenges in the areas of student support and teacher education are to some extent identical in EMI and Anglophone settings. A main concern is the widespread lack of understanding among university managers and academic staff of the learning needs of students entering new disciplines, which prevents the development of adequate support approaches. The mistaken assumption that students’ struggles are mainly or only caused by language deficiencies leads to easy solutions such as generic language and skills courses; at the same time, it allows subject lecturers to eschew their responsibility to help students with the acquisition of discipline-specific academic language and literacy. It certainly cannot be denied that some students in both EMI and Anglophone contexts need language classes before and/or during their degree study to reach the proficiency threshold necessary for engaging with academic literacy requirements. However, student support cannot end at this point, as it does in many universities. As I have argued earlier and elsewhere, explicit instruction of academic literacy needs to be integrated into the disciplines and be delivered by subject lecturers with the support of EAP practitioners. It should therefore be the common goal of EMI and EAP scholars to raise wider awareness of students’ academic literacy needs and argue, based on examples of successful implementation, for discipline-specific and genre-based instruction. Introducing this type of instruction would also require investment into a different approach to EAP and subject teacher education. To convince university managers to invest in the necessary structural changes and staff development, more systematic evidence is needed of the benefits of this discipline-integrated support for students. Most of the available information comes from Australian universities or from individual programmes at other Anglophone universities, and there is not yet any evidence from institutions where English was more recently introduced as medium of instruction. EMI and EAP scholars should join forces to introduce and roll out discipline-specific academic literacy instruction in new EMI universities, investigate to which extent this alleviates the difficulties of students with lower English proficiency, and evaluate the impact of this approach on content learning.

A support system that gives all students quicker access to the communicative practices of their new disciplines is desirable for any university regardless of their geographical location. Improving student support as well as the education of teachers delivering this support is therefore a shared objective for EMI and EAP scholars and practitioners. Dividing the two domains on the basis of their linguistic environments is, as I have explained earlier, not helpful for the cross-fertilisation and collaboration needed to achieve more adequate student support and teacher education. With their shared challenges in these areas, EMI and EAP, despite some differences in other areas, should be seen as two sides of the same coin rather than as separate fields.