Appropriateness of EAP courses at tertiary level: an intra-university study in Bangladesh

Abstract

The existing research works of ELT in the context of Bangladesh, either focus on the implementation of language teaching methodologies, its issues and how the teacher’s role is essential to language learning and development. Additionally, most of these works mainly focus on primary, secondary and higher secondary levels of education, in which problems are pointed out and suggestions made, to better facilitate language learning and development for the English language learners of the country. Then again, there is a lack of research that explores the gap that exists in their expected English language proficiency level in comparison to their actual proficiency level when they start higher education at the tertiary level institutions of the country. Thus, this dissertation has come into existence to understand how the gap is fulfilled in the tertiary level education, through the EAP (English for Academic Purposes) courses offered in the university. As the revised National Education Policy (2010) requires all universities to have a three-credit hour EAP course, therefore, a more detailed review of such courses is mandatory. Most of the existing ELT research work in Bangladesh, especially in the tertiary context, have not focused on solely documenting students’ experiences and opinions. In the following dissertation, the effectiveness of EAP courses at the tertiary level, entirely from students’ perspectives has been documented. The researcher has conducted a cross-sectional longitudinal qualitative study, where students’ responses were collected and processed to find the best possible answers to the research questions driving this study.