Exploring Evaluation Principles for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Textbooks

Abstract

Since 2013, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses are the trend in college English development. More and more universities offer EAP together with EGP (English for General Purposes) courses to non-English major students. There are a variety of textbooks for EAP in the market. How to select the most suitable textbooks for students is worth considering for college English teachers who have been teaching EGP for years but with little training for EAP. Then it's necessary to learn what exactly EAP is and explore some principles to evaluate textbooks. Basing on an analysis of volumes of literature and a small scale survey, this paper defines EAP and distinguishes EAP, ESP (English for Specific Purposes) and study skills firstly, and then suggests a quite all-inclusive list against which educators and teachers can check to evaluate and select EAP textbooks.