Challenges for developing EAP practice in anglophone contexts

English for academic purposes (EAP), the academically-focused branch of English for specific purposes (Johns & Dudley-Evans, 1991), aims to facilitate learners’ participation in the English language academic community (Hyland & Hamp-Lyons,2002; Prosser, 1994). The EAP sector has expanded rapidly in recent years (Liyanage & Walker, 2014b) and now plays a significant role within Anglophone and non-Anglophone higher education contexts (Ashraf, Hakim, & Zulfiqar, 2014; Basturkmen, 2012; Kafle, 2014). Global trends which associate English and the West with educational prestige (Kubota & Lehner, 2004), assigning them a “perceived superiority” (Liyanage & Walker, 2014b, p. 165) over other languages and educational paradigms, have led considerable numbers of students to undertake English-medium higher education (Brown, 2014; Doiz, Lasagabaster, & Sierra, 2013; Kim, Tatar, & Choi, 2014). These developments have cemented the international status of the language, which has also has become the global medium for academic communication and a lingua franca in general (Hyland & Hamp-Lyons, 2002; Jenkins, 2011; Seidlhofer, 2005). Increased student mobility and preferences for English-medium education have been of particular economic significance to Britain, Australasia and North America, referred to as the BANA nations, which have experienced a boost in overseas enrolments (Andrade, 2006; Saw, Abbott, Donaghey, & McDonald, 2013; Terraschke & Wahid, 2011). Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom are amongst the countries with the highest proportion of international tertiary enrolments globally (OECD, 2014), and the United States and Canada also host a significant number of overseas students (Choudaha & Chang, 2012; Siddiq, Nethercote, Lye, & Baroni, 2012).