TELSIG & EAP4SJ Webinar - February 2024

This webinar will examine how the field of EAP can adapt to disruptive technologies by rejecting deficit approaches which enforce English dominance, and instead embrace students' digital translanguaging abilities that have too long been ignored.

Digital Realities: Embracing Translanguaging as the Future of EAP

Kelly Webb-Davies

Two current major challenges in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) are the exclusionary hegemony of Academic English and the effect of artificial intelligence on coursework and language assessment. This webinar will propose addressing these issues by embracing the concept of translanguaging. Rather than viewing students through a deficit lens, we should be recognising their multilingual abilities as assets. A translanguaging view can acknowledge the reality that students already employ digital tools, such as machine translation, to navigate between languages, and that generative AI (GenAI) can also serve as an advanced language adjustment tool. By integrating this approach into EAP, we can alleviate exclusionary linguistic and cognitive barriers students face in academia and foster a more inclusive, multilingual environment for expressing and communicating ideas. During the webinar, practical examples will be provided to demonstrate how translanguaging and GenAI can be effectively incorporated into course design and lessons.

About the speaker

Kelly is an EAP Tutor, Module Lead, and the Technology Enhanced Learning and Language Lead at Bangor University International College in Bangor, North Wales. She has a BA (Hons) in Linguistics from the University of Western Australia and the University of Melbourne where her focus was on Phonetics and Phonology, and she has lectured in both at Bangor University. In addition to her CertTESOL, Kelly is currently pursuing a DipTESOL. She has been teaching EAP since 2019, applying both linguistic knowledge and her interest in EdTech to lessons and course design.