English as a lingua franca in higher education: Implications for EAP

Abstract

The last decade has brought a number of changes for higher education in\ncontinental Europe and elsewhere, a major one being the increasing use of\nEnglish as a lingua franca (ELF) as the medium of instruction. With this change,\nEAP is faced with a new group of learners who will need to use it predominantly\nin ELF settings to communicate with speakers from other first language\nbackgrounds. This overview paper first discusses the changes that have taken\nplace in the field of EAP in terms of student body, followed by an outline of the\nmain findings of research carried out on ELF. These changes and the results of\nrecent ELF research have important implications for EAP instruction and\ntesting. It is argued here that EAP needs to be modified accordingly to cater for\nthe needs of this group. These revolve around the two major issues: norms and\nstandards for spoken English and target use. If the aim of EAP instruction and\ntesting is to prepare speakers for academic settings where English is the lingua\nfranca, the findings of ELF research need to be taken into consideration and\nthen integrated into EAP curriculum design and testing, rethinking norms and\ntarget use. The norms and standards used by EAP instruction must be based on\nthis realistic English, and educational resources should be deployed more\nrealistically, including the usage of ELF, thereby validating the pluralism of\nEnglish. This paper argues that any practice that excludes this perspective would\nbe reducing EAP qualitatively and quantitatively.

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