International Students and Their Perspective Faculties: What do They Want? What do They Lack?

Abstract

The English Language Centre (ELC) at the University of New England, Armidale, has recently undertaken to review and rewrite its EAP programme. This project has been called Learning English for Academic Purposes (LEAP). The rewriting signals change for the centre: change in the demands of students, in the knowledge, ideas and roles of the language instructors at the ELC and what they believe the students should be capable of before they leave. This paper looks at this change in terms of needs: the needs of EAP students, the needs of the centre and the university, and the needs of the language instructors. This paper also seeks to look at the big picture of what role a university based ELICOS centre and its programs can hope to play in the educational and related needs of students from a non-English speaking Background (NESB), as well as to ask the same questions of the greater university into which nearly all the Centre's students graduate. It therefore tries to understand the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders in the education of NESB and other international students in a university context. This is an Action Research Project and as such, this paper represents the first major reflection on the development of the LEAP project to date.