Louise Greener Durham University English Language Centre Departments, Disciplines and Logistical Complexity: How do you solve a problem like Pre-sessional? Louise Greener Durham University English Language Centre

What’s (mis?)informing my position? Taught or managed a Pre-sessional for 15 years (mostly in one place) Currently Pre-sessional Director at Durham Some wider awareness…

What’s the problem? Every year I ask myself: Is Pre-sessional a fundamentally contradictory remit?

I will discuss… 5 key (interrelated) problems.. Some possible solutions (note hedged language…)

Problem 1: competing narratives about purpose… Pre-sessional can have an unclear purpose: EAP Centres and the University often have very different ideas about what we’re doing… The University (or some parts of it) thinks we’re doing IELTS (or something like it), we think we’re doing university-embedded academic language and literacy induction (to quote from the Durham website…)

Things departments have (often) said when I’m talking to them about Pre-sessional… “Why do you need sample essays if you’re just teaching grammar?” “Do you do an IELTS test at the end?” “How far have you improved my students IELTS scores?”

Problem 2: Marketisation and Internalisation… Pre-sessional could be seen as the most ‘marketised’ end of the EAP spectrum: relied on for pouring international students (and money) into the University… (We see 550-600 students a year… Lots of institutions are significantly bigger… )

As part of a critique of the ESP inheritance in EAP, Ding and Campion (2016) comment that … “…quick fix attitude has persisted, particularly in presessional courses, and perpetuates the ‘maximum throughput of students with minimum attainment levels in the language in the shortest possible time’ philosophy (Turner, 2004:97).”

So…the problem becomes… Managing huge growth or sudden contraction in student numbers from a not always predictable range of disciplines (the problem of the lone ethnomusicologist) While all the time … Maintaining coherence and quality in the curriculum, teaching and assessment

Problem 3: Far away from the research-informed ideal Does the short, intensive, (often) large-scale, ‘gate-keeper’, logistically complex nature of Pre-sessional mean that it can be the type of EAP furthest away from the research-informed EAP ideal?

(What is the research-informed ideal?) Discipline-invested courses taught by embedded, experienced, qualified EAP teachers, with a clear sense of position in the University…(see BALEAP Teacher Competency framework, for example) But Pre-sessional is often (but not always) … EGAP-(ish), taught by short-term staff with (inevitably) short-term relationships with the institution Or some ESAP for large groups but nothing for the lone ethnomusicologist …(like Durham)

Problem 4: Short-term-ness Pre-sessional staff are often new to the institution, are on short-term contracts and teaching very long hours…(we have about 50 staff with 50% new hires on Pre-sessional every year) No specific TEAP qualifications are required across the sector so limited ability to assume shared knowledge (Ding and Campion, 2016)

Problem 5: A world of our own… Can the ‘closed’ nature of Pre-sessionals (taught ‘out of season’ and not part of wider degree programmes or embedded in departments) mean they become ‘worlds of their own’? Was the course I worked on developing its own internal world that didn’t reflect, refer to or extend into the University…? Are we creating our own artificial ‘genres’ or propagating beliefs about learning at Durham that just aren't true or are not longer true?

Solutions (kind of)… Deeply context dependent… Is consideration of the issues more important than the answers? The flexibility, autonomy, resources and time to address these various issues will probably depend on the type of institution you exist within… (Hadley’s (2016) description of different relationships of EAP to their institutions is thought-provoking…)

Solution: Competing narratives and the IELTS spectre… IELTS haunts EAP… Does EAP collude by giving IELTS-like grades and assessment on Pre-sessional courses? Some Institutions dictate that Pre-sessional MUST report in these terms IELTS is a useful benchmark… but it’s not EAP (Moore and Morton, 2004)

Solutions 1: Competing narratives and the IELTS spectre… Is resistance futile? Report on your own terms? Use IELTS benchmarks but mean something different?

Solutions: The literature-informed ideal… How do deliver research-informed EAP in the Pre-sessional context (big numbers, unpredictable disciplines, short-term staff, limited resources …)? Different ways to think about it…

Start from conceptual frameworks: Focus on concepts rather than trying to teach each every single genre students may encounter (which is impossible) (Argent, 2017) We have tried to shape a curriculum that considers e.g. the ownership of knowledge and writing from sources but then adds differentiated tasks to address these ideas…

For example… For example a short 1,000 word writing task at early in the programme (designed to focus on writing from reading) is a Literature review for Scientists, a case study for MBA students and an essay for Law students

Also… Weave into teacher induction and the whole curriculum that Pre-sessional is the start and not the end of ‘academic induction’. Students (and teachers) need to be aware that they will ‘layer on’ additional genres and expand key concepts as they go through their courses Teach a student to fish etc….

Solution: Short-term-ness How are you going to get everyone ‘on the same page’ (even if they don’t entirely agree!)? Make sure we’re on the same page first… Being very clear about what EAP is in your context. Ensuring shared beliefs among managers, curriculum developers etc. We found writing them down (for our BALEAP accreditation) very clarifying

Communicating with teachers…(this is a long list, it has to be!) Detailed, curriculum-focused teacher induction Detailed curriculum and materials provided Detailed teacher notes provided Regular curriculum meetings Curriculum support teachers ‘Buzz’ and ‘full’ observations Development sessions Create a humane environment that people want to return to (careful scheduling of assessments etc.) to increase returnees

Does this completely solve the problem? Does it create new ones? It helps develop an centre ‘culture of EAP’ Problem of ‘over managing’ experienced professionals? Lots of time and resources needed to make it happen…Does everyone have that?

Solution: A world of our own… How do you keep links with the wider University and embed these in your programme? Two-way process? The more we communicate the more departments learn about us Alternative sources of information Students feedback at the end of the programme is nice for the ego… but doesn’t tell you what you really need to know

Conclusion So, is Pre-sessional a fundamentally contradictory remit? Pre-sessional presents a range of pressures that make delivering high quality EAP very challenging to manage A BALEAP Pre-sessional Managers’ forum?