Theoretical Foundations of EAP as an Independent Course in Chinese Tertiary Education

The newly published College English Teaching Guidelines recognizes the necessity of teaching English for Academic Purposes( EAP),but it suggests that EAP could be incorporated into the mainstream course of English for General Purposes( EGP). Through the analysis we find there are critical discrepancies between EAP and EGP in terms of objectives and methods. EAP is needs-driven while EGP is learning-driven; EAP serves the current needs of students’ disciplinary studies while EGP helps students to lay linguistic foundation and prepares students for future careers which are not clear for the majority of them; EAP requires higher linguistic ability of students who need to use English for their academic studies than EGP; EAP provides materials which are informative regardless of the writers’ linguistic and cultural background while EGP’s materials pursue interesting topics and idiomatic language written by native speakers; EAP is genre-based; cultivating students academic literacies in particular disciplinary communities while EGP develops general communicative competence in daily life; EAP is project-based while EGP is task-based,EAP promotes students’ critical thinking ability while EGP advocates the cultivation of the mainstream culture and social values. Those differences rule out the possibility to teach EAP in current EGP courses.