Theresa Lillis & Carolyn McKinney
Working with/at the ‘unforeseen’ in research and teaching: Towards critical and decolonial perspectives on academic and professional writing
In our presentation, we will argue that engaging with the ‘unforeseen’ and ‘unexpected’ in our teaching and research may constitute a fundamental corrective to dominant institutional discourses and practices surrounding academic and professional writing. However, the extent and ways in which we each engage with the unforeseen and unexpected– and indeed what we recognise as familiar/expected, strange/unexpected –are fundamentally nested within our individual and geolinguistic histories and may shift according to our ideological, methodological and epistemological trajectories. Recognising these histories and trajectories is therefore central to any attempt to articulate what constitutes the ‘unforeseen’ and how we might act upon such recognition. We will argue that intellectual tools drawn from critical and decolonial approaches to language and epistemology are useful in enabling us to recognise and legitimise the ‘unforseen’ and ‘unexpected’ within dominant evaluation regimes of academic and professional writing.
Our focus will be on writing as a semiotic resource for learning and knowledge making, highlighting ideologies which are fundamentally exclusionary, privileging colonial languages, notably English in the current global context. Drawing on data extracts from empirical research and reflections from our practice in a number of sites and domains – teacher education in South Africa, academic writing for publication in Southern and Central Europe, student writing in higher education in the UK, professional social work writing in England – we will illustrate the specific ways in which orientations to writing, as configured through dominant evaluation regimes, work towards exclusionary practices in academic and professional knowledge making. We will argue for the importance of critical and decolonial approaches in challenging such practices, in particular the value of ‘delinking’ (Quijano, 1992; Mignolo 2007), whereby assumptions and expectations sustaining dominant practices– including the imposition of standard varieties, dominant genres and monolingual/monomodalism – can be made visible and reconfigured from the perspective of ethically and epistemically legitimate academic and professional practice.
Quijano, A. (1992) Colonialidad y modernidad/racionalidad. Perú indígena 13 (29): 11-20.
Mignolo, W. (2007). DELINKING. The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality. Cultural Studies, 21(2): 449–514.
Theresa Lillis is Professor Emerita of English Language and Applied Linguistics at The Open University, UK. She has taught across educational levels and has been researching academic and professional writing for over thirty years with a principal focus on the politics of production and participation. She has published extensively on academic and professional literacies, and ethnographic methodologies.
Carolyn McKinney is Professor of Language Education (School of Education, University of Cape Town). Her research and teaching focus on racialised ideologies of language and literacy, and bi/multilingual education in the Global South. She recently co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism (2nd ed, 2024) and Decoloniality, Language and Literacy: Conversations with Teacher Educators (2022, Multilingual Matters). Carolyn has collaborated with Theresa Lillis on the politics of writing and research methodologies for language and literacy.
Judith Hanks
Exploring The Unforseen in EAP
At the heart of our EAP profession lies a paradox. For decades, the field has focused on ways to control learning, teaching, research, using frameworks of aims, competencies, and objectives to predict and manage the future. But in doing so we miss a wealth of unforeseen moments. In this paper I will play seriously with the notion of the unforeseen in EAP: what if we make space for those chance moments, accidents or surprises? What if we explore disruptions? I will probe the sense of threat that often accompanies ‘the unforeseen’, arguing that many of our planning activities are efforts to control what cannot be controlled. Instead, I argue that unforeseen moments can be embraced, thus enabling new knowledge and understanding in our field.
I will draw on case studies of EAP teachers, learners, and researchers in a range of international settings, who fruitfully puzzled about issues central to the (co-)construction of academic knowledge. Giving space to these unforeseen moments, including learners and teachers as co-researchers of their own praxis, provides an opportunity to develop mutual understanding(s) across disciplines. Such work involves multimodal, intercultural and interdisciplinary creativity, requiring little more than confidence and imagination to proceed. I end by considering how we need to adjust our practices in research and pedagogy to allow for curiosity to explore the unforeseen in EAP.
Judith Hanks is Professor of Applied Linguistics, at the University of Leeds, UK. She is a PhD supervisor, lecturer and teacher educator in EAP and TESOL. She has been Programme Leader for MA TESOL & Teacher Education and MA TESOL(China) and is currently Chair of the cross-Faculty Research Ethics Committee for Business, Environment, Social Sciences, and Scholarship. She is a founder member of the Exploratory Practice international network, and since 2017 she has convened the Fully Inclusive Practitioner Research Network (https://www.fullyinclusivepr.com/ ) spanning five continents. Her research interests include: co-production, inclusive practitioner research, and intercultural issues in EAP.
Baraa Khuder
Teaching in the Age of Uncertainty: Technological Disruptions and the EAP Classroom
From the early adoption of word processors and online reference tools to the rise of automated writing evaluators, technology has continually reshaped English for Academic Purposes (EAP) practices. Each wave of technological innovation challenges educators to adapt and create new approaches. This talk examines the latest generation of digital tools, particularly those powered by artificial intelligence, and their impact on EAP pedagogies.
A challenging area of EAP teaching is scaffolding academic reading. Thus, critical questions arise: How do traditional models of critical reading adapt to contemporary practices when faced with sophisticated yet sometimes nonsensical AI-generated texts? How can educators adjust their approaches to foster meaningful engagement with such content? In terms of pedagogies of academic writing, the conversation shifts to skills: What new competencies do students need to navigate this evolving landscape? How can writers draw on their existing knowledge of writing to develop feedback-seeking skills and respond effectively to writing prompts?
Drawing on two research projects with undergraduate and postgraduate students, this talk reflects on the importance of building on and challenging existing pedagogical knowledge to remain relevant. By examining how EAP practitioners have historically navigated technological shifts, it highlights the ongoing interplay between innovation and improvisation. The talk concludes with practical insights and strategies for embracing technology’s unexpected twists as opportunities for pedagogical creativity, deeper student engagement, and renewed dialogue about academic communication. In doing so, it underscores the potential for these disruptions to reinvigorate EAP teaching practices, offering fresh pathways to support students in an increasingly digital academic world.
Baraa Khuder is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Learning in Science at Chalmers University of Technology, where she teaches writing for publication for doctoral students. Her research explores interdisciplinary collaborative writing among students and EAL scholars, with a focus on power dynamics, writer identities, feedback literacy, and AI literacy. Her recent work has been published in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Higher Education, Applied Linguistics, and other journals.