Disrupting discourses of deficiency in English for Academic Purposes: dialogic reflection with a critical friend

ABSTRACT

The discourse of deficiency in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has been perpetuated through the neoliberalisation of higher education. To explore the possibilities of disrupting this discourse, an EAP instructor, Daron, engaged with his critical friend, Jariya, in dialogic reflection. This was done on Daron’s teaching journal entries through the restorying of his reflections, which were then critically responded to, and finally reconstructed to highlight tensions and hegemonic discourses affecting EAP. This dialogic exercise showed disruption through the reimagination of the EAP marketplace and through the centring of self and anxiety in a neoliberalised parameter. The former demonstrated a critique towards the value of standardised assessments while the latter illustrated the seemingly isolating endeavour when contesting the notion of students’ language deficiency. While tensions were not expected to be resolved, this study showed how EAP practitioners could still enact autonomy within their work parameters.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• EAP
• academic writing
• dialogic reflection
• critical friend

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Jonathan Tang and Lee Gek Ling for their inspiring dialogue about being a Critical Friend. The authors would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).