– EAP for Social Justice SIG –
As part of the Visions: Looking Back and Looking Ahead PIM hosted by the University of Kent last month, we ran a World Cafe session focusing on Visions of Social Responsibility in EAP. We felt that, after a year which has posed many challenges to us all, and has thrown light on a number of social justice-related concerns in and around our EAP contexts, the time was right to hear from the EAP community about their visions for a better future, and their practical ideas for how this might be achieved. To this end, we posed the question, “What would EAP look like if social responsibility were to be placed at its core, and how might we get there?” Participants came to the discussion with a wide variety of social-justice related interests and varying degrees of experience of putting these into practice. These areas included: critical digital pedagogies; teaching EAP/ESOL to refugees (e.g. trauma-informed pedagogies and teaching on the CARA Syria Programme); developing course materials related to global studies and cultural communication; creating in-house EAP materials and authentic materials, co-produced with students; designing student-driven syllabi; promoting teacher autonomy within EAP centres and within their wider institutions; decolonisation of the EAP curriculum; factors such as race and financial privilege of EAP students; social justice in pedagogy and teaching practice. Participants’ visions There were a number of main themes which emerged from our group discussions, which we have summarised below: Theme 1: Enhanced student-student engagement and communication We discussed how we might encourage students to genuinely listen to and engage with each other. This discussion branched out in different directions:
It was noted that the EAP curriculum has strong potential to transform students’ learning. This discussion branched out in two directions:
This main theme addressed the need to increase student access to university and participation in EAP provision. This discussion focused on the following:
There were a number of practical suggestions regarding how we may develop a more socially responsible EAP, which, when analysed more closely, can be grouped around the two emerging themes: reimagining the spaces we hold and gaining strength through collaborations. Spaces for opportunities
It was emphasised that many EAP practitioners would benefit from peer support in order to embark on social justice work, both in their own institutions and across the wider EAP community.
We would like to thank all participants for sharing their visions of social responsibility in EAP and discussing some of the challenges and potential ways forward in this area. We are intending to revisit these ideas and use them to inform our direction over the course of the next few months … so please watch this space for further developments! Please feel free to add any further thoughts / comments in the comments section below.
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