Processfolio: Uniting Academic Literacies and Critical Emancipatory Action Research for Practitioner-Led Inquiry Into EAP Writing Assessment

Abstract

This article reports on the design and implementation of an alternative form of writing assessment in a UK English for Academic Purposes (EAP) pre-sessional course. The assessment, termed processfolio, was a response to research inquiry into how writing assessment in a local context negated student agency and inculcated disempowering models of teaching and learning academic writing. The project merged an Academic Literacies approach to writing (Lea and Street, 1998) with a Critical Emancipatory Action Research (Carr and Kemmis, 1986) framework and a Critical Realist (Bhaskar, 1989) perspective. Data collected from interviews with students and teachers on their experiences of the processfolio found that a small scale intervention has potential for agency to be exercised within the highly constrained context of a UK EAP pre sessional. New directions in research are proposed which can engage students and teachers to work for change in EAP within their internal and external constraints.