Creating Effective Materials for EAP

Abstract

Materials used in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses should strike a balance between the required linguistic proficiency in receptive and productive language skills and the disciplinary-specific vocabulary, content, and text genres. While published EAP materials provide EAP teachers with a solid structure, a wide range of texts, and a syllabus to rely on, most coursebooks remain inadequate to cater to the needs of learners from different academic disciplines. Therefore, EAP teachers should consider a set of carefully determined criteria before selecting, adapting, and developing pertinent EAP materials for their students and exert effort to familiarize themselves with the disciplinary-specific text genres. This chapter informs the readers about the key principles of selecting, using, and adapting published EAP materials and ways of designing customized EAP materials for specific learning contexts. Practical principles are offered for EAP teachers preparing students, particularly for undergraduate programs. These guiding principles emphasize selecting engaging and relevant authentic texts and designing purposeful activities that integrate technology in material development. They also focus on teaching discipline-specific academic writing conventions and text genres through genre pedagogy in EAP courses, aiming to enhance students’ academic literacy and critical thinking skills.