Abstract

Commissioned by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) in the United Kingdom, this case study has been written as an introductory guide for teachers and researchers working with international and home students for whom it would be beneficial to develop competencies with academic English as it is used across the disciplines. In particular, as per the HEA directives handed down in commissioning this case study, Open Educational Resources (OER) and teaching quality are the theme to be addressed in this report with respects to the open web-based tools, resources and practices in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) that will be introduced here. A range of open corpus-based tools, resources and techniques will be demonstrated and discussed in section four, looking at different language projects from around the world that provide free access to valuable English language resources which are relevant for use both within and beyond traditional higher education. Because these tools and resources are openly available they can be used and shared by learners and teachers across a variety of contexts. For example, in language schools and in university language support centres, in open and distance education, and in independent or informal learning. They range from tools and resources that can provide diagnostic help for improving vocabulary, reading and writing to resources that can assist with identifying, retrieving, storing and managing useful words and phrases as they occur across a variety of authentic academic and general English language contexts. Findings and resources will also be shared in section three, based on an OER cascade study that was carried out with EAP teachers and students at Durham University English Language Centre (DUELC). As part of the TOETOE project (ˈtɔɪtɔɪ: Technology for Open English – Toying with Open E-resources), three corpus-based projects - FLAX , the Lextutor , and AntConc - were trialed for their efficacy in mainstream EAP teaching and learning practice. A fourth corpus-based project, WordandPhrase , was introduced at one of the project dissemination events and will also be introduced here in this case study. None of the participants in the study had received any prior training with corpus-based resources for Data-Driven Learning (DDL) in language education. Initial findings from this study at Durham University on the design and usability of corpus-based resources have informed on-going research and development work with the TOETOE project in collaboration with the open-source FLAX project at the University of Waikato in New Zealand.