CAL was awarded a two-year grant by ETS under the TOEFL Committee of Examiners Research Program to investigate how the newly developed TOEFL® Teaching Framework can be effectively implemented for curriculum planning and instruction in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classes in China. The project will be led by Principal Investigator Francesca Di Silvio, and Co-PIs Meg Montee and Elyssa Sun.
The TOEFL® Teaching Framework provides guidelines for designing courses, lessons, and teaching activities to develop student proficiency in academic English. Through this project, CAL will work with 25 university EAP instructors in China to investigate their curriculum design practices, document the aspects of the Framework they perceive as most useful and relevant, and evaluate the efficacy of a four-week online training course designed to support the implementation of the Framework in their teaching contexts.
The mixed-method research design includes surveys and virtual thinkaloud interviews aimed to elicit participant perceptions of the Framework before and after the training course. The four-week virtual training course about implementing the Framework will be evaluated through observations, participation data, and evaluation surveys.
To assess the long-term impact of the training, the participants will submit a curriculum or lesson work sample and complete a survey three months after training; five instructors will also complete post-training virtual video interviews. The study will produce rich results about current EAP teaching practices in China and inform recommendations for future implementation of the Framework as EAP approaches grow in China.
Contact Information:
- If you or an EAP instructor you know in China are interested in this study and would like to learn more about this project, please contact Jenna Bushton at jbushton@cal.org or visit our recruitment website to apply: https://www.cal.org/free-online-training-course-eap/
