Enhancing the status of EAP

This chapter examines the marginalised status of EAP within neoliberal university systems and explores strategies for enhancing the professional standing and working conditions of EAP practitioners. It emphasises the need to foreground EAP’s original mission and advocate to university managers the important role of EAP practitioners in contributing to institution-wide inclusive academic literacy support. Based on their expertise in language analysis, pedagogy, and materials development, EAP specialists are also well positioned to contribute substantially to the professional development of subject lecturers. This potential can be best realised in collaborations between EAP practitioners and subject specialists, which are encouraged and incentivised by university managers. Whilst such collaborations primarily aim to support the development of students’ academic literacy, they can also enable subject lecturers to embed a focus on academic literacy into their teaching practices, thus creating a more sustainable model of academic literacy instruction. Both top-down institutional support and bottom-up initiatives are required to raise the visibility and recognition of EAP across the university.