Coming from an ELT general English teaching context, I could find some similarities and differences between both fields. Some people would say that EAP (English for Academic Purposes) is a "more specialized" sector within ELT and this may be true, as the first came after the latter. In addition, there are other influences on EAP apart from ELT, for instance, register analysis, study skills, genre analysis, academic literacies, among others. Anyway, what is important here, is that knowing these differences will help teachers cater to the needs of EAP learners and, at the same time, use techniques that are familiar to them from an ELT background.

Time - In EAP, time is often limited, as students may already be taking the course or need to take a proficiency exam in order to be accepted in a course. Whereas in ELT, there are longer time scales.

Proficiency - Proficiency targets in EAP are frequently very ambitious, as students are coming into the field at even lower levels nowadays. In ELT, the goal is to achieve general English proficiency and this may mean different things for different students.

Focus - EAP students have an academic focus and these are defined by their specific needs. ELT students have a broader focus, which is defined by general language proficiency.

Motivation - EAP students are more often self-motivated, which is a little different from general ELT students, who often need teacher-led motivation in order to keep them coming to class.

Goals - EAP students have a clearly defined goal they are working towards, which is reaching academic independence and autonomy. For ELT students, there are students with different goals in the same class.

Material - EAP students may bring material to contribute to the lessons, as there are different fields and this helps the teacher prepare the lessons. However, there are EAP course books available in the market, which cater to general EAP skills and critical thinking following the CEFR levels. In ELT, the materials is presented by the teacher, who often chooses a course book for the level, or follows the school's programme.

Students - The most important difference between EAP students is disciplinary, which means, what subject they are planning to study. Whereas for ELT learners, the key differences can be based around culture and language.

Some similarities between both fields can be found in methods, approaches and practices. They both share: the communicative approach; task-based learning; collaborative learning; and learner-centered approach.

There are also similarities in some key skills that both EAP and ELT teachers should have. They are: planning and organization; creative skills and techniques; language analysis; communication and presentation; understanding of student behaviour, motivation and psychology; and classroom management skills. Related to those skills, Chazal (2014) points out that "EAP teachers must be able to understand and respond to their students' needs, difficulties, and learning styles".

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REFERENCES

1997. R. R. Jordan. English for Academic Purposes: A Guide and Resource Book for Teachers. Cambridge University Press.

2014. Edward de Chazal. English for Academic Purposes. Oxford University Press.

Today, I'm going to tell you how I got into EAP and some basic concepts around this field that I am beginning to study for my current teaching practice.

I have never been a one-to-one teaching enthusiast. Since when I started teaching, people would ask me if I taught private lessons and I would always say 'no' for many reasons. The first one being that I am shy, thus, I was scared that I wouldn't be able to maintain a conversation with only one person. In addition, people always came to me with very specific needs, such as 'conversation lessons', 'English for traveling' or 'business English' (too busy to answer my messages, though) and I was in the beginning of my career, still doing the CELTA, etc. Finally, I just thought teaching kids and groups was more fun. So, it was easier for me to refuse them.

However, when the pandemic hit, and we had to shift to online lessons, I could learn how to use online teaching platforms, took a few courses and now I really enjoy teaching English online. So, in February this year, I decided to put up a flyer and share on social networks for one-to-one lessons. Naturally, people came to me asking for private lessons online and I accepted them. And that's basically how I got to teaching English for Academic Purposes, which is a field I was not familiar with until this year. I now have two students with very specific needs and both of them are academics.

In order to be better informed on teaching EAP students, I did some research online and found books and materials that suited our needs. Now I am learning as I go since time is of the essence for my students.

Some basics of EAP

From what I have read so far and my teaching context, the most important aspect of EAP is that it is needs driven. In other words, students learn English with a particular purpose in mind. For instance, they may want to enter a university abroad, they may be professors in a another language wanting to teach in English, or they may even already be Master's or Doctorate students who need to improve their English skills to do presentations and write essays. Thus, their goal is identifiable and describable, and should inform the EAP programme the teacher will create for them.

Similarly to ELT, EAP involves the development of the four skills in an integrated way. However, the teaching and learning of English in EAP happens so that students can operate effectively in the disciplines.  Also, there are many skills and competences in EAP, to mention a few:

• critical thinking
• study skills (e.g. citation, referencing)
• getting familiarized with the target academic culture
• development of student autonomy and independence

It is important to mention that EAP is not concerned with subject content. Rather, its goal involves developing key academic skills, language and competences. The field concerned with teaching content through language is CLIL (Content Language Integrated Learning). For example, EAP will refer to general academic vocabulary, such as 'analyze', 'evaluation', 'conclusion', 'focus on', etc.

An increasing trend in EAP is for students to begin learning at lower levels, such as A2 and lower B1. This is my teaching context. I have one A2 student working towards becoming a B1 by the end of May - we started in March - and one B1 student trying to improve her presentation skills to be able to teach in English my the end of May. This way you can see that I am also working with ambitious goals.

Generally, EAP students are highly motivated, as they have an specific goal in mind. EAP teachers should aim to keep this motivation high and learning relevant and engaging.

I believe this is the basics of EAP, just to give a general idea. Since I come from an ELT teaching context, I will try to focus on the main differences between these fields in my next post.

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REFERENCES

1997. R. R. Jordan. English for Academic Purposes: A Guide and Resource Book for Teachers. Cambridge University Press.

2014. Edward de Chazal. English for Academic Purposes. Oxford University Press.