Stakeholder support – ‘Did you know …?’


Once you have applied the strategies and principles in this chapter to your EAP assessment context, the following information can be photocopied or adapted for use with different stakeholder groups, such as test takers, parents and staff, who are involved in or affected by your EAP testing and assessment. Consider how this passage could be modified or applied in your own working context.


PHOTOCOPIABLE Did you know …


that we prioritize meaningful and applied learning on our EAP courses. Whilst we understand the importance of assessment, we actively seek to avoid situations where learning is negatively influenced by training for EAP tests?


Assessment is an unavoidable element of EAP courses in many institutions today, as students often need to demonstrate their proficiency or level in order to apply.


Nevertheless, the ethos of our EAP programmes has at its heart the key objective to develop students’ skills in a manner which will assist them, in a more comprehensive manner, to use language and academic skills to their best advantage in their academic study.


We understand that in high-stakes situations, passing a test can sometimes start to dominate the ambitions of students and teachers in a way which may detract from the breadth of learning required for the application of EAP skills in more complex real-world contexts.


As a result, we try to make sure that our syllabus and the associated assessments are appropriately designed so as to reflect the complexity of the learning targets and usage requirements of our students’ future academic studies.


When students join our courses, we try to assist them in seeing how their studies with us will introduce them to a broader set of EAP skills which have a wider range of applications than those which are commonly incorporated into external standardized tests. Such external tests often have to be designed for use by a larger cross-section of test takers based in different locations all over the world.


One benefit of the EAP courses and assessments which we provide is that we can build assessments which represent the challenges that our students will face on future courses at our institutions. We can also use these assessments within our courses in ways which support, rather than steer, learning.


Chapter 11: Washback 137


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