Navigating Uncharted Waters: An Accelerated Content-Based English for Academic Purposes Program.

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Just as progress and change require flow, curricular design (and redesign) is also cyclical and recursive by nature. It takes shape and evolves according to students’ educational needs, faculty decisions, and, ideally, workforce demands. In the same way that water currents are shaped by natural forces unseen, curriculum creation too is influenced by the context from which subject matter is drawn. In 2008, Miami Dade College (MDC) received a $1.9 million Title V grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop an Accelerated, Content-based English for Academic Purposes (EAP) track called Project ACE for ESL students. The ACE curriculum is anchored by the principles of flexibility, contextualization, and faculty buy-in, critical matters given the current climate of budget cuts and attrition. This article chronicles Project ACE’s curriculum development process in creating a program for intermediateand advanced-level EAP students. The process has included (1) investigating the expectations of college instructors for their first-year students, while paying close attention to the particular needs of English Language Learners (ELLs), (2) building and analyzing a written and spoken general education corpus, (3) aligning the new ACE curriculum with general education courses, and (4) securing EAP faculty buy-in to the approach by supporting participation in ongoing Curriculum Writers Workshops (CWWs) where instructors create corpus-informed, content-based materials tied to the ACE curriculum.Â