Study On The Effects Of EAP Reading And Writing Course In A Polytechnic

English for Academic Purpose(EAP)refers to the teaching of English with the specific aim of helping learners to study,conduct research or teach in that language(Flowerdew &Peacock,2002).With the internationalization of higher education,EAP is receiving an increasing amount of attention in English as a foreign language(EFL)context.In the local context in China,the interest in EAP has been increasing among the EFL researchers and instructors as well.In academia,the western practice is introduced and the feasibility of EAP courses in Chinese EFL context is discussed.Recently,EAP has been advocated by researchers and administrators as substitute or compliment for the current College English Programs(Cai &Liao,2010a;Qin,2003).Meanwhile,EAP courses have been implemented in several universities in China,such as Fudan Universities and Tsinghua Universities.Although studies on EAP course and teaching are abundant,there have been few studies directly concerned with the evaluation of the effectiveness of EAP courses in College English with large sample in a longitudinal way.This study aims to explore the teaching effects of EAP course in a polytechnic,which includes evaluation of the students' attitudes,academic reading and writing capabilities etc.In this empirical study,the mixed approach is employed.The quantitative methods such as testing and questionnaire are used along with the qualitative methods such as interview and documentation.Subjects are the sophomore students who are assigned to A-class with higher English level in Entrance English Examination.And interviewees are selected based on the scores of pre-test and teacher's recommendation.The following results have been achieved in this research.First of all,students are in favor of the English for Academic Reading and Writing Course(EAPRW)in the polytechnic but the degree of fondness is not very high.The effectiveness,the dullness and professionalism in teaching content along with the negative learning experience in the past lead to the negative opinions towards EAPRW.Secondly,there is significant improvement in academic reading.And the well-mastered aspects are illustrated as follows: locating the topic sentence and grasping main ideas and organization of paragraphs,getting the viewpoints of author and reading speed,the ability to identify organization of text,skimming and prediction and division of sentence structure.And aspects that are not well-mastered by subjects can be summarized as: finding implicit information,scanning and guessing word meaning,distinguishing information and complicated sentence and vocabulary.Meanwhile,academic writing is improved in EAPRW as well.Finding and analyzing the supporting evidence,topic sentence and organization of paragraph along with the organization of text,summarizing,and unity can be taken as the well-performed skills by subjects.And paraphrasing,synthesizing and academic language and coherence can be categorized into the skills that are not well mastered by subjects.Thirdly,the EAPRW teaching effects are influenced by teacher,teaching form and attitudes.To be more specific,the teaching effects can be influenced by teacher,the easiness or hardship of the teaching content,the practice with teaching content,accumulation of knowledge and teachers' feedback in micro-skills in EAPRW.Implications can be drawn from the results.For teachers,Groups or team-teaching as well as intersecting videos related to teaching content should be used more in teaching practice of EAP courses.Handout and exercises can be designed to facilitate the effectiveness.What's more,teachers should give more feedback on students' homework and more evaluation should be given about students' assignment in class.For editors of EAP textbooks,the textbook should be perfected based on students' English level and needs.More efforts can be made to select articles with scientific and technological background that are less professional and more popular.The content can be more updated with the development of society,which can makes the content more intriguing for students in EAPRW.Meanwhile,more notes about advanced words can be added to passage in textbook.