Fostering engagement in the EAP online landscape

Student engagement in online tasks has been one of the most significant challenges during the shift to online learning. Students may lack the confidence, support and language skills to enable them to fully engage in the online mode. It can also be challenging for teachers to build rapport with and between students online as it requires new digital competencies (Starkey, 2020). Within a socio-constructive paradigm, technology is used less for knowledge transfer and more for knowledge negotiation (Li, 2017). This means that to facilitate increased motivation, linguistics output, participation and interaction in online learning, we need to limit our teacher talk time and encourage students to become actively involved in online learning tasks (verbal and non-verbal participation) (Helm, 2015). This can be achieved by incorporating inquiry-based learning, self-initiated learning, and viewing EAP classes as a community of practice. However, this is easier said than done, and EAP teachers need durable and adaptable strategies within their teaching kits to manage online student engagement.

In this presentation, we firstly share how a Hong Kong university English language centre has transferred EAP provision to synchronous and asynchronous teaching. Using interview data (reflecting on teaching practice from Jan-May 2020), we will then report teachers’ views on strategies and approaches for encouraging student engagement in the online teaching mode. Finally, we offer recommendations based on our evolving practice within this changing landscape of EAP provision in times of social distancing. This session will be useful for EAP and ESP university language teachers and subject coordinators.