Student reflections as a catalyst for teacher reflective practice in teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP)

ABSTRACT

This paper examines a new first-year EAP course in a Hong Kong university. It utilizes teacher and student reflections to understand the course’s strengths and weaknesses, aiming to enhance its design and delivery. The study employed a qualitative approach whereby textual analysis was used to interpret the data collected in the form of written teacher reflections, written student reflections, and notes of teacher reflective dialogue. The thematic categories for coding the data were established based on the course’s main learning outcomes: Effective Learning, Spoken Language, and Written Language. Findings reveal that teachers were more critical of the course compared to learners. Teachers expressed dissatisfaction with the pedagogical approach to Effective Learning unit, insufficient time provided in the course to teach solo speaking, and the inability to cover too many organizational and linguistic features in the writing unit. Students, however, did not have much to reflect on about Effective Learning, had mixed views about Spoken Language with some worried about reading from notes, and wrote extremely positively about their learning of Written Language. Nonetheless, their views provide valuable insights for course improvement. Consequently, the paper advocates for a reflective pedagogy approach to EAP that considers both teacher and student reflections to enhance teaching and learning outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• EAP
• reflective pedagogy
• student reflections
• teacher reflective dialogue

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aditi Jhaveri

Aditi Jhaveri is a Senior Lecturer at the Center for Language Education in The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She is the Area Leader of Scholarship Advancement at the Center.

Edward Li

Edward Li is the Associate Director of Programming at the Center for Language Education in The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is responsible for overseeing the English, Chinese and 3^rd language courses at the Center.