The Future of EAP in Higher Education: An Italian Perspective

It is generally accepted that the teaching of EAP (English for Academic Purposes) is related to academic disciplines having their own specificity and discourse practices and that it is mostly needed by students who intend to study an undergraduate or postgraduate degree course at universities where English is used as a medium of instruction (EMI). Therefore, EAP courses usually focus on improving the reading and speaking skills students may need to participate successfully in required academic activities and socialize in diverse and specific cultural contexts [1-2, 3, 4], as well as developing writing skills for assignments, such as essays, critiques and presentations. Otherwise, especially when taught in non- English speaking universities, the scope and content of a course are mainly designed for graduate students who need to succeed in writing publishable research. Although scholarly debate has also encouraged teachers’ engagement with issues of power and ideology and tried to raise interest in critical theory and discourse in EAP teaching [5], EAP continues to mostly coincide with ESP (English for Specific Purposes) practice in undergraduate classes, where it benefits from the boost of the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) approach, and it attempts to satisfy the expectations of the academic community to which international PhD students of the ESP aspire to belong through discipline-oriented genre focused analysis. Only a few authors, such as [6], have stressed the relation existing between academic writing competence and professional success of future graduates in non-academic fields. The purpose of this article is threefold: 1) to provide an overview of Italian university English course organization and available EAP courses at major Italian Universities; 2) to examine the content of the most popular EAP manuals on the Italian market (a sample of thirty books has been used for this study); 3) to suggest a revision of the typical EAP textbook-based course on the basis of the changed social and professional contexts requiring expert users of EAP. These recommendations will take into account the professional writing skills needed by 21st century (Italian) H.E. students, the emerging new freelance digital professions, and the results of a survey on the interests and preferences of a group of EFL students enrolled at a local public Italian University who were administered a quantitative and qualitative questionnaire about the English course syllabus and assignment expectations.