Self-empowerment in the struggling transition from General English to EAP: Action and reflection of a Chinese teacher

Abstract

Faced with the common challenge of professional development from the periphery of academia, EAP teachers in developing economies such as China also grapple with the particular hurdle of transitioning from teaching General English (GE) courses. While previous studies suggest aspects of how the teachers view the difficulties they encounter, the elicited data they use can hardly show the real actions the teachers take to identify problems, plan and evaluate changes. To remedy this oversight, this study adopts an action research design (Burns, 2010; Johnson, 2012) and explores how one teacher adapted to her new tasks in teaching EAP and coped with the transition through her personal actions.

The results show that the teacher was empowered in her struggle with the transition to EAP teaching, and such empowerment enabled her to become an active agent in the changes and implement the accommodating strategies for the EAP curriculum and students. The empowerment was also seen in her efforts not only to accumulate EAP-related experiences and bring forth creative ideas, but also to apply them in her teaching. This action research and its analytical framework help EAP practitioners to reflect on and theorise from what they encounter in everyday classrooms.