Developing an EAP Writing Course for Chinese ESL Students

Academic writing competence comprises attitudes, knowledge, skills, and strategies that enable one to produce writing in accordance with the expectations of the academic discourse community. This paper introduces an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing course developed to help students from China acquire an adequate level of academic writing competence in English so that they can successfully handle the academic writing tasks that they will need to undertake in their undergraduate studies. It describes: (1) the curricular objectives that the writing course aims to accomplish; (2) the pedagogy that is adopted in the course; (3) the course materials that are used; (4) the ways in which the students' progress in academic writing is assessed; and (5) the gains in writing proficiency that the students have experienced, as well as the feedback that they have given on the course. It is believed that sharing curriculum development efforts provides a valuable opportunity for EAP practitioners, course developers, and materials writers to engage in healthy exchanges of effective curricular practices and constructive criticisms. Exchanges of this nature can contribute to the development of EAP curriculums that better cater for the academic writing needs of second language students in institutions of higher education.