- Email: [email protected]
Aspects of Article Introductions
314
Book reviews / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013) 313–318
chapter for teachers of English for Academic Purposes/English for Specific Academic Purposes (EAP/ESAP), and the discussion of the tensions would be interesting to those devising assessment tasks and briefs. Chapter 7, ‘Writing for oneself and others’, investigates the sometimes peripheral and more subjective/reflective types of writing that may not afford students many marks but are nevertheless a required part of some assessments. The authors point out that the BAWE corpus does not include a high proportion of such writing and they briefly discuss the possible causes. There are also interesting discussions of the issues around pedagogical assessment of, and research into, reflective writing. Because such writing is a somewhat recent development in UKHE, disciplinary conventions may not yet be fully established, nevertheless the description and discussion of the different types of narrative give several pointers to the EAP/ESAP teacher in terms of structure, level of formality and verb tense. The final chapter, ‘Networks across genres and disciplines’, summarises the social purposes of student writing, reconsiders methodological issues and proposes how the findings of the research can be applied to HE assessment and writing. It also reminds us of the limitations of the BAWE corpus, which probably explains why some common genres are omitted. As a result of recent ESAP expansion, there is a growing number of novice ESAP teachers, who may lack confidence in their own knowledge, in particular when they are faced with a wide range of written assignment types. Although this book is packed with helpful discussions and observations, it assumes a very good grasp of the principles of genre and discourse analysis. Novice ESAP teachers may prefer the information and insights to be presented in a more accessible and practical format, as might devisers of academic assessments from a range of disciplines. A few genres are not included (e.g. technical and systematic reviews), although this is probably due to the limitations of the BAWE corpus. In conclusion, EAP/ESAP teachers, syllabus designers, materials writers, assessment devisers, and language and education researchers will find this book useful. The thoroughness and transparency in Part 1 of the book render it particularly useful to potential researchers. Part 2, is an invaluable resource for ESAP teachers who may be unfamiliar with some of the academic conventions of the specific discipline in which they are working. The authors point out in Chapter 2 that English as a medium of instruction is increasing outside English speaking countries. This made me reflect on the potential for slightly different social purposes in different cultures, and also the changing nature of language and social purpose in general, of HE assessments. These points are implied in Chapter 8, with a call for further research. This is indeed necessary for, while templates based on the current BAWE corpus could be useful guides, their indiscriminate use may eventually become open to the criticism of linguistic prescriptivism. Not only should corpora be augmented, studies should also be replicated, to monitor changes in language and social purpose in order to ensure that the information aimed at the various different practitioners reflects current practices. Alice Lawrence Extensive practical experience teaching EFL/ESP overseas and EAP/ESAP, Applied Linguistics, and Discourse & Genre Analysis in British Higher Education. Currently responsible for a wide-ranging in-sessional English language support programme at a UKHE institution. Research interests: code switching in emergent bilingual children; evaluating the impact of ESAP. Alice Lawrence, Academic Director (Language Support) English Language Teaching Centre, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S37LG, United Kingdom E-mail address: a.lawrence@sheffield.ac.uk
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2013.03.004
Aspects of Article Introductions, J.M. Swales. The University of Michigan Press-Michigan Classics Editions, Ann Arbor (2011). 104 pp., US $18.00, UK £14.73, ISBN: 978-0-472-03474-1
John Swales wrote Aspects of Article Introductions in 1981 while he was senior lecturer in the Language Studies Unit at Aston University in Birmingham, which published it as a ring-bound 95-page monograph subtitled “Aston Research Report No1”. Swales (2009) estimates that approximately 400 copies were produced over the years at Aston. Its reissue now makes it more available, particularly for the use in university libraries and for younger and newer researchers in the field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The reissue, published by the University of Michigan Press with the original preface, now additionally contains an ‘Introduction to the Reissue’ by Swales himself, which is as interesting as the monograph itself as he comments on “the current status of our understanding of journal article introductions and the place of Aspects in that understanding” (2011, p.3). The reader of the 2011 edition cannot but realize that this little monograph laid the ground for Swales’ seminal work ‘Genre Analysis’, especially regarding the concepts of genre and the analysis of moves within genres, established in the original publication for the first time.
Book reviews / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013) 313–318
315
Aspects of Article Introductions is divided into eight chapters, each of which has three to four sections. This review focuses more closely on Chapters 1 and 2 as they seem to exemplify Swales’ approach in more detail. Chapter 1, ‘Introduction’, explains the ‘Rationale’, which was mainly the lack of adequate pedagogical materials on article introductions especially for non-native speakers; describes how ‘the Data’, made up of 48 article introductions, for the corpus were selected at random from “the hard sciences, the social sciences, and the biological/medical field (16 of each)”; and introduces ‘genre’ as a concept, a term he had discovered while reading a review of a book by the cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz (Swales, 2009) in ‘Questions of Approach and Method’. As Swales writes in the ‘Introduction to the Reissue’, this term is ‘the key to the future’: By genre, I mean a more or less standardized communicative event with a goal or a set of goals mutually understood by the participants in that event [.] The importance I attach to the attribution of genre-specificity derives from my belief that it is only within genres that viable correlations between cognitive, rhetorical and linguistic features can be established, for it is only within genres that language is sufficiently conventionalized and the range of communicative purpose sufficiently narrow for us to hope to establish pedagogically employable generalizations that will capture certain relationships between function and form (p. 17–18, emphasis in the original). Originally Swales intended to analyze how authors refer to previous research in their article introductions, and had suggested distinguishing substantive and cosmetic references. Substantive references refer to “a narrative history of advance in knowledge in the particular topic”(p.19), whereas cosmetic references are used when the authors first present their own argument and then add references to other authors. In substantive references the authors occur as subject of the sentences as in “Foster and Hoffman proposed a model for this”(p.20), while in cosmetic references the authors “are placed in parenthesis” (p.20) as in “This type of model may be illuminating (Foster and Hoffmann)” (p.20). This categorization exemplifies the approach Swales takes in his discourse analysis: “looking for insights rather than frequency tables” (p.20), devising terminology to describe what the authors of a text are doing and how they are doing it. Swales completes Chapter 1 by pointing out that identifying and labeling the “surrounding pieces of text” was the most difficult part, and he “opted for a system of colour coding” to discover patterns before making “interpretive decisions” (p.21), which are the main content of this monograph. The following chapters contain the results of analyzing the most common patterns of the 48 article introductions. In Chapter 2, ‘Thoughts on Overall Structure’, Swales introduces a concept of ‘Moves’ for a major type of article introduction: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Establishing the Field Summarizing Previous Research Preparing for the Present Research Introducing Present Research
Each subsequent chapter examines one of the four ‘Moves’ in more detail. They all start with an introduction, and then dissect each move into possible sub-moves with numerous examples from the corpus, focusing on the semantic and linguistic devices without losing sight of the overall structure of the genre. Chapters 3, 5 and 6 each conclude with an ‘Area cross Check’, surveying variations among the disciplines represented by the corpus. Chapter 3 ‘Move 1 – Establishing the Field’ starts with ‘General Observations’ of opening moves, whose main purpose is to attract the readership. Swales identifies ‘Asserting Centrality’, when authors claim that their research is interesting or important, for example, as a common opening move. In ‘Other Methods of Field Establishment’ he presents, what he calls, “less direct [.] less dramatic” (p.35) ways of opening article introductions. ‘Move 2 – Summarizing Previous Research’, Chapter 4, is the longest chapter of the monograph, probably due to the fact that this move is ‘the most extensive section of introductions’. It is subdivided into ‘Openings’, ‘References’, ‘Orientation and Tense’, and ‘Oster’s Hypothesis on Tense in Previous Research Descriptions’. ‘Openings’ shows how authors signal that they are now summarizing research. ‘References’ distinguishes references in which authors are the subject or agent of sentences from parenthetical references. Reporting verbs and their tense (past or perfect) are examined in the following sections. Here Swales distinguishes three types of ‘Orientation and Tense’: A. Strong author orientation (past) B. Weak author orientation (present, perfect) C. Subject orientation (may, present) The categories ‘strong’ and ‘weak author orientation’ indicate that authors are subject or agent elements of sentences, while the latter refer to parenthetical references. ‘Subject orientation’ indicates a non-reporting style. In the final section Swales considers how his findings relate to Oster’s (1981). Chapter 5 ‘Move 3 – Preparing for Present research’, is divided into ‘Gap Indications’, ‘Question-Raising’, ‘Finding Extensions and Missing Third Moves’ and ‘Area Cross Check and Conclusions’. ‘Gap Indications’ signal to the reader that summarizing previous research is completed and justify the author’s own research topic. In ‘Question Raising’ Swales investigates the use of modality and condition, while in ‘Finding Extensions and Missing Third Moves’ he suggests how authors extend previous research; in 8 cases (of 48) no apparent Move 3 could be identified.
316
Book reviews / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013) 313–318
‘Move 4 – Introducing Present research’, Chapter 6, focuses on how authors finally present what they have done and how this depends on Move 3. If authors had identified a gap in research they might now explain how they intend to “remedy this deficiency” (p.68). According to the amount of detail authors reveal the fourth move can be either teleological (authors state aim or purpose) or ontological (in which authors make no reference to aim or purpose). The chapter closes with ‘Two Problematic Introductions’, discussing the unconventional use of ‘we’ and ‘the’ in this move. Chapter 7 introduces two metaphors. The first is an attempt to characterize text typology of article introductions (problem-solution). The second metaphor “second-storying” (p.86) is a concept taken from ethnomethodologists’ analysis of how people carefully narrate stories or anecdotes in order to attract the attention of their listeners. Journal introductions, explains Swales, resemble these narrations as they will be written after completing the author’s ‘first story’, his/her research, and have certain public relation aspects. The subject of the final chapter is a list of 10 pedagogical suggestions for how genre analysis might be implemented in classroom materials and activities, “in approximate order of increasing specificity” (p.88), ranging from using color-coded text indicating the four-move structure both for developing reading via discourse appreciation and as a preparation for writing, exercises on one particular Move, cloze exercises to writing introductions based on models. Even after 30 years, these suggestions are very useful and stimulating, creating specific links between what has been learned and what might be taught, and we should thank John Swales for the decision to make Aspects of Article Introductions accessible to a wide readership, especially researchers in the field of EAP. References Oster, S. (1981). The use of tenses in “reporting past literature” in EST. In L. Selinker, E. Tarone, & V. Hanzeli (Eds.), English for academic and technical purposes: Studies in honor of Louis Trimble (pp. 76–90). Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Swales, J. (2009). Incidents in an educational life. A memoir (of sorts). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Irene Dietrichs * Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, 6048 Horw, Switzerland Tel.: þ41 43 388 00 27. E-mail address: [email protected]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2013.03.002
Access EAP: Foundations, Susan Argent and Olwyn Alexander. Garnet Publishing Ltd., Reading (2010). 230 pp., US$46.34/ UK£25, Paperback, ISBN: 9781859645246
The following is a review of “Access EAP: Foundations”, an ESL course book written by Susan Argent & Olwyn Alexander (2010). The course book offers a principled, practical approach in keeping with current SLA research and pedagogical theory. It is a timely resource due to an increasing need for EAP materials that can prepare intermediate-level, EFL learners to commence tertiary studies in English-medium institutions. The course book’s most notable features include an engaging narrative approach, a focus on cultural awareness and a multifaceted approach toward the development of critical thinking, study and academic language skills. It is driven by rhetorical functions presented in authentic academic texts which have been adapted for intermediate-level learners. The overarching goal of the course book is to empower EAP learners to become increasingly autonomous by training them in the effective use of resources (both materials and human) and encouraging them to participate in learning communities. The growing trend toward internationalization of higher education has led to the establishment of international branch campuses of western universities, English-medium national universities and online degree programs (Altbach & Knight, 2007). It has also created an increasing demand for materials that can prepare English as a foreign language (EFL) students to succeed in English-medium, tertiary programs. In 2008, Alexander, Argent and Spencer published a guide for English for academic purposes (EAP) teachers entitled EAP Essentials: A teacher’s guide to principles and practice. Since then Argent and Alexander have applied the same principled approach and practices to Access EAP: Foundations, a course book written for intermediate-level English students (CEF B1 or IELTS band 4.0 – 5.0) preparing for or embarking on tertiary studies in Englishmedium institutions. Access EAP: Foundations comprises ten units, each broken down into five 2-h lessons. It contains tapescripts and an audio CD as well as a teacher’s manual that can be purchased separately. The materials are presented using a unique narrative approach which is strategically designed to shadow three adult, EFL learners as they begin their studies at a fictitious UK university. This setting is effectively used to raise learners’ awareness of cultural differences they may encounter and to introduce them to critical thinking, study skills, and strategies that they will need in their new academic environment. The
Book reviews / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013) 313–318
chapter for teachers of English for Academic Purposes/English for Specific Academic Purposes (EAP/ESAP), and the discussion of the tensions would be interesting to those devising assessment tasks and briefs. Chapter 7, ‘Writing for oneself and others’, investigates the sometimes peripheral and more subjective/reflective types of writing that may not afford students many marks but are nevertheless a required part of some assessments. The authors point out that the BAWE corpus does not include a high proportion of such writing and they briefly discuss the possible causes. There are also interesting discussions of the issues around pedagogical assessment of, and research into, reflective writing. Because such writing is a somewhat recent development in UKHE, disciplinary conventions may not yet be fully established, nevertheless the description and discussion of the different types of narrative give several pointers to the EAP/ESAP teacher in terms of structure, level of formality and verb tense. The final chapter, ‘Networks across genres and disciplines’, summarises the social purposes of student writing, reconsiders methodological issues and proposes how the findings of the research can be applied to HE assessment and writing. It also reminds us of the limitations of the BAWE corpus, which probably explains why some common genres are omitted. As a result of recent ESAP expansion, there is a growing number of novice ESAP teachers, who may lack confidence in their own knowledge, in particular when they are faced with a wide range of written assignment types. Although this book is packed with helpful discussions and observations, it assumes a very good grasp of the principles of genre and discourse analysis. Novice ESAP teachers may prefer the information and insights to be presented in a more accessible and practical format, as might devisers of academic assessments from a range of disciplines. A few genres are not included (e.g. technical and systematic reviews), although this is probably due to the limitations of the BAWE corpus. In conclusion, EAP/ESAP teachers, syllabus designers, materials writers, assessment devisers, and language and education researchers will find this book useful. The thoroughness and transparency in Part 1 of the book render it particularly useful to potential researchers. Part 2, is an invaluable resource for ESAP teachers who may be unfamiliar with some of the academic conventions of the specific discipline in which they are working. The authors point out in Chapter 2 that English as a medium of instruction is increasing outside English speaking countries. This made me reflect on the potential for slightly different social purposes in different cultures, and also the changing nature of language and social purpose in general, of HE assessments. These points are implied in Chapter 8, with a call for further research. This is indeed necessary for, while templates based on the current BAWE corpus could be useful guides, their indiscriminate use may eventually become open to the criticism of linguistic prescriptivism. Not only should corpora be augmented, studies should also be replicated, to monitor changes in language and social purpose in order to ensure that the information aimed at the various different practitioners reflects current practices. Alice Lawrence Extensive practical experience teaching EFL/ESP overseas and EAP/ESAP, Applied Linguistics, and Discourse & Genre Analysis in British Higher Education. Currently responsible for a wide-ranging in-sessional English language support programme at a UKHE institution. Research interests: code switching in emergent bilingual children; evaluating the impact of ESAP. Alice Lawrence, Academic Director (Language Support) English Language Teaching Centre, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S37LG, United Kingdom E-mail address: a.lawrence@sheffield.ac.uk
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2013.03.004
Aspects of Article Introductions, J.M. Swales. The University of Michigan Press-Michigan Classics Editions, Ann Arbor (2011). 104 pp., US $18.00, UK £14.73, ISBN: 978-0-472-03474-1
John Swales wrote Aspects of Article Introductions in 1981 while he was senior lecturer in the Language Studies Unit at Aston University in Birmingham, which published it as a ring-bound 95-page monograph subtitled “Aston Research Report No1”. Swales (2009) estimates that approximately 400 copies were produced over the years at Aston. Its reissue now makes it more available, particularly for the use in university libraries and for younger and newer researchers in the field of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The reissue, published by the University of Michigan Press with the original preface, now additionally contains an ‘Introduction to the Reissue’ by Swales himself, which is as interesting as the monograph itself as he comments on “the current status of our understanding of journal article introductions and the place of Aspects in that understanding” (2011, p.3). The reader of the 2011 edition cannot but realize that this little monograph laid the ground for Swales’ seminal work ‘Genre Analysis’, especially regarding the concepts of genre and the analysis of moves within genres, established in the original publication for the first time.
Book reviews / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013) 313–318
315
Aspects of Article Introductions is divided into eight chapters, each of which has three to four sections. This review focuses more closely on Chapters 1 and 2 as they seem to exemplify Swales’ approach in more detail. Chapter 1, ‘Introduction’, explains the ‘Rationale’, which was mainly the lack of adequate pedagogical materials on article introductions especially for non-native speakers; describes how ‘the Data’, made up of 48 article introductions, for the corpus were selected at random from “the hard sciences, the social sciences, and the biological/medical field (16 of each)”; and introduces ‘genre’ as a concept, a term he had discovered while reading a review of a book by the cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz (Swales, 2009) in ‘Questions of Approach and Method’. As Swales writes in the ‘Introduction to the Reissue’, this term is ‘the key to the future’: By genre, I mean a more or less standardized communicative event with a goal or a set of goals mutually understood by the participants in that event [.] The importance I attach to the attribution of genre-specificity derives from my belief that it is only within genres that viable correlations between cognitive, rhetorical and linguistic features can be established, for it is only within genres that language is sufficiently conventionalized and the range of communicative purpose sufficiently narrow for us to hope to establish pedagogically employable generalizations that will capture certain relationships between function and form (p. 17–18, emphasis in the original). Originally Swales intended to analyze how authors refer to previous research in their article introductions, and had suggested distinguishing substantive and cosmetic references. Substantive references refer to “a narrative history of advance in knowledge in the particular topic”(p.19), whereas cosmetic references are used when the authors first present their own argument and then add references to other authors. In substantive references the authors occur as subject of the sentences as in “Foster and Hoffman proposed a model for this”(p.20), while in cosmetic references the authors “are placed in parenthesis” (p.20) as in “This type of model may be illuminating (Foster and Hoffmann)” (p.20). This categorization exemplifies the approach Swales takes in his discourse analysis: “looking for insights rather than frequency tables” (p.20), devising terminology to describe what the authors of a text are doing and how they are doing it. Swales completes Chapter 1 by pointing out that identifying and labeling the “surrounding pieces of text” was the most difficult part, and he “opted for a system of colour coding” to discover patterns before making “interpretive decisions” (p.21), which are the main content of this monograph. The following chapters contain the results of analyzing the most common patterns of the 48 article introductions. In Chapter 2, ‘Thoughts on Overall Structure’, Swales introduces a concept of ‘Moves’ for a major type of article introduction: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Establishing the Field Summarizing Previous Research Preparing for the Present Research Introducing Present Research
Each subsequent chapter examines one of the four ‘Moves’ in more detail. They all start with an introduction, and then dissect each move into possible sub-moves with numerous examples from the corpus, focusing on the semantic and linguistic devices without losing sight of the overall structure of the genre. Chapters 3, 5 and 6 each conclude with an ‘Area cross Check’, surveying variations among the disciplines represented by the corpus. Chapter 3 ‘Move 1 – Establishing the Field’ starts with ‘General Observations’ of opening moves, whose main purpose is to attract the readership. Swales identifies ‘Asserting Centrality’, when authors claim that their research is interesting or important, for example, as a common opening move. In ‘Other Methods of Field Establishment’ he presents, what he calls, “less direct [.] less dramatic” (p.35) ways of opening article introductions. ‘Move 2 – Summarizing Previous Research’, Chapter 4, is the longest chapter of the monograph, probably due to the fact that this move is ‘the most extensive section of introductions’. It is subdivided into ‘Openings’, ‘References’, ‘Orientation and Tense’, and ‘Oster’s Hypothesis on Tense in Previous Research Descriptions’. ‘Openings’ shows how authors signal that they are now summarizing research. ‘References’ distinguishes references in which authors are the subject or agent of sentences from parenthetical references. Reporting verbs and their tense (past or perfect) are examined in the following sections. Here Swales distinguishes three types of ‘Orientation and Tense’: A. Strong author orientation (past) B. Weak author orientation (present, perfect) C. Subject orientation (may, present) The categories ‘strong’ and ‘weak author orientation’ indicate that authors are subject or agent elements of sentences, while the latter refer to parenthetical references. ‘Subject orientation’ indicates a non-reporting style. In the final section Swales considers how his findings relate to Oster’s (1981). Chapter 5 ‘Move 3 – Preparing for Present research’, is divided into ‘Gap Indications’, ‘Question-Raising’, ‘Finding Extensions and Missing Third Moves’ and ‘Area Cross Check and Conclusions’. ‘Gap Indications’ signal to the reader that summarizing previous research is completed and justify the author’s own research topic. In ‘Question Raising’ Swales investigates the use of modality and condition, while in ‘Finding Extensions and Missing Third Moves’ he suggests how authors extend previous research; in 8 cases (of 48) no apparent Move 3 could be identified.
316
Book reviews / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013) 313–318
‘Move 4 – Introducing Present research’, Chapter 6, focuses on how authors finally present what they have done and how this depends on Move 3. If authors had identified a gap in research they might now explain how they intend to “remedy this deficiency” (p.68). According to the amount of detail authors reveal the fourth move can be either teleological (authors state aim or purpose) or ontological (in which authors make no reference to aim or purpose). The chapter closes with ‘Two Problematic Introductions’, discussing the unconventional use of ‘we’ and ‘the’ in this move. Chapter 7 introduces two metaphors. The first is an attempt to characterize text typology of article introductions (problem-solution). The second metaphor “second-storying” (p.86) is a concept taken from ethnomethodologists’ analysis of how people carefully narrate stories or anecdotes in order to attract the attention of their listeners. Journal introductions, explains Swales, resemble these narrations as they will be written after completing the author’s ‘first story’, his/her research, and have certain public relation aspects. The subject of the final chapter is a list of 10 pedagogical suggestions for how genre analysis might be implemented in classroom materials and activities, “in approximate order of increasing specificity” (p.88), ranging from using color-coded text indicating the four-move structure both for developing reading via discourse appreciation and as a preparation for writing, exercises on one particular Move, cloze exercises to writing introductions based on models. Even after 30 years, these suggestions are very useful and stimulating, creating specific links between what has been learned and what might be taught, and we should thank John Swales for the decision to make Aspects of Article Introductions accessible to a wide readership, especially researchers in the field of EAP. References Oster, S. (1981). The use of tenses in “reporting past literature” in EST. In L. Selinker, E. Tarone, & V. Hanzeli (Eds.), English for academic and technical purposes: Studies in honor of Louis Trimble (pp. 76–90). Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Swales, J. (2009). Incidents in an educational life. A memoir (of sorts). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Irene Dietrichs * Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, 6048 Horw, Switzerland Tel.: þ41 43 388 00 27. E-mail address: [email protected]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2013.03.002
Access EAP: Foundations, Susan Argent and Olwyn Alexander. Garnet Publishing Ltd., Reading (2010). 230 pp., US$46.34/ UK£25, Paperback, ISBN: 9781859645246
The following is a review of “Access EAP: Foundations”, an ESL course book written by Susan Argent & Olwyn Alexander (2010). The course book offers a principled, practical approach in keeping with current SLA research and pedagogical theory. It is a timely resource due to an increasing need for EAP materials that can prepare intermediate-level, EFL learners to commence tertiary studies in English-medium institutions. The course book’s most notable features include an engaging narrative approach, a focus on cultural awareness and a multifaceted approach toward the development of critical thinking, study and academic language skills. It is driven by rhetorical functions presented in authentic academic texts which have been adapted for intermediate-level learners. The overarching goal of the course book is to empower EAP learners to become increasingly autonomous by training them in the effective use of resources (both materials and human) and encouraging them to participate in learning communities. The growing trend toward internationalization of higher education has led to the establishment of international branch campuses of western universities, English-medium national universities and online degree programs (Altbach & Knight, 2007). It has also created an increasing demand for materials that can prepare English as a foreign language (EFL) students to succeed in English-medium, tertiary programs. In 2008, Alexander, Argent and Spencer published a guide for English for academic purposes (EAP) teachers entitled EAP Essentials: A teacher’s guide to principles and practice. Since then Argent and Alexander have applied the same principled approach and practices to Access EAP: Foundations, a course book written for intermediate-level English students (CEF B1 or IELTS band 4.0 – 5.0) preparing for or embarking on tertiary studies in Englishmedium institutions. Access EAP: Foundations comprises ten units, each broken down into five 2-h lessons. It contains tapescripts and an audio CD as well as a teacher’s manual that can be purchased separately. The materials are presented using a unique narrative approach which is strategically designed to shadow three adult, EFL learners as they begin their studies at a fictitious UK university. This setting is effectively used to raise learners’ awareness of cultural differences they may encounter and to introduce them to critical thinking, study skills, and strategies that they will need in their new academic environment. The