Enhancing academic literacy in EAP

This chapter discusses the original mission of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) which is to develop students’ academic literacy and enable their participation in the communicative practices specific to their academic disciplines. A key objective of the book is to provide both novice and in-service EAP practitioners with theory- and research-based information and guidance on academic literacy approaches to EAP. The chapter begins by contextualizing EAP within the global expansion of English medium instruction (EMI) and increasing student diversity in higher education. It then revisits the original concept and core mission of EAP, offering a critique of the dominant and reductive use of the label for generic courses concerned with language proficiency. The embedding of academic literacy instruction into subject curricula, facilitated by collaborative partnerships between EAP practitioners and subject lecturers, is advocated. Various levels of embedding based on collaboration between EAP practitioners and subject lecturers are discussed. The chapter concludes with an outline of the book, providing a brief description of the contents of its chapters.