Designing an EAP Course for Undergraduate Engineering Students

This case study specifies the academic English needs of English Medium Instruction (EMI) Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE) students in a state university in Turkey. Curriculum design process of the project rested on Nation and Macalister’s (2010) framework. 33 students, five instructors in EEE department, and a language instructor took part in the need analysis (NA) stage. The data collection tools included checklists, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data gathered through the student and instructor questionnaires were analysed through SPSS Statistics v.22 software package programme. Codes, categories, and themes were generated to interpret the qualitative data. Based on the findings of the NA and environment analysis, we offered curriculum renewal for the English I-II courses by taking students’ learning needs and environmental constraints into account. The resulting data revealed that the existing English for General Purposes (EGP) course failed to satisfy both students and instructors. An English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course geared towards motivating students towards using English in their departmental courses and future work/studies was suggested. The results of the NA as well as the chosen principles were the main drivers and determinants of the goals, content, format, and proposed assessment procedures of the new course.