An Intensive EAP Course: Does it Really Improve Students’ English Proficiency?

 

 

Sisilia Setiawati Halimi

 

 

An intensive English for Academic Purpose Course for students taking a dual degree programme is now widely offered in some universities in Indonesia. This dual degree programme uses English as its medium of instruction and requires students to do part of their study for one or two years in a university overseas. The course aims to prepare students to use English to be able to cope with the principally linguistic and communication requirements of international academic situations.

 

The International Class, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia offers a 120 hour EAP course to upgrade its students’ English language skills and enable them to communicate in English effectively. To find out the effectiveness of this course in improving students’ English language proficiency, pre and post English language proficiency tests were administered. In addition, interviews with the students were carried out to obtain data related to other factors that were not captured in the test but were important to measure the students’ English language proficiency.

 

The findings show that students’ English language proficiency did improve to a certain extent; however, the importance of this study lies in the fact that it provides insights for course designers and teachers about the aspects of language skills that need special attention to increase the effectiveness of EAP course.

 

 

 

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Halimi, S. S. (2003, November). An intensive EAP course: Does it really improve students’ English proficiency? Paper presented at the 38^th RELC International Seminar, Singapore.

 

 

 

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