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I had a moment of revelation at the 12th BUSEL EAP conference held at Bilkent in Ankara, Turkey last week. One of the plenary speakers was describing a bridge that we try to move students across towards faculty requirements. Then she looked at her own picture and said well it’s a ‘one way bridge’. In that moment I started to examine the way we use the word ‘bridge’. Even a presentation given by my collegue and myself at the same conference had the expression a ‘bridging course’ for maths and science into faculty. In education what do we exactly mean by bridge.
Usually in our every day experiences a bridge allows us to cross from A to B but we also have the option of recrossing the bridge, of turning back, of stopping to admire the view. It is very rare that a bridge is not recrossed or experienced again. Yet how many of our learners in an intense EAP situation are able to actually go back to point A if they need to and not just once but as many times as they need to. How much do EAP programmes allow for that? From what I heard from that weekend and from that of my own and other experiences there seems to be a ticking clock where learners need to complete the level in a certain time frame to make it to the next stage. EAP has far more in common with a computer game where learners have to complete levels but there is little turning back.
Realising this made me feel quite sad for those learners who need to travel from A to B many times, to come home and leave again at their own choosing. I wondered as I sat staring at the bridge, which looked more like something from Indiana Jones whether EAP programmes could be more flexible to allow learners to have a bridge like experience.
Great thoughts. I wonder how many of our students would even consider returning to where they came from? Is it just the nature of programs to just start somewhere and end somewhere, not only in EAP? I’d say the recycling of previous knowledge is one step to returning to a previous point on the bridge. Still, I think there is room for EAP programs to develop a reflection ability in our students, whereby they determine where more of their attention needs to be focused and opportunity for further development of previously learnt (or perhaps better termed “exposed to”) be voluntary.
Hey thanks for stopping by.))I had thought about the recycling angle and learner self study. The reflection element is certainly important. I also agree that it is not only EAP which has such an approach. Can education ever free itself from a linear approach I wonder and produce something more organic and more cyclical.
Nope. Not until formal education is complete.