How to Prepare English-for-Academic-Purposes (EAP) Students for the Transfer Climate of the English-Medium Post-Secondary Academic Setting: EAP Instructors’ Perspectives of the Transfer Climate and the Role of EAP Courses

This dissertation examines (1) the nature of the transfer climate in an English foracademic purposes (EAP) education setting specifically from the perspectives of EAP instructors. It also examines (2) what EAP instructors perceive can be done to prepare students for such a transfer climate. The transfer climate refers to the nature of the target context of instruction and the support for learning transfer perceived by a learner in that target context. Therefore, in the case of the EAP education context, the target context of instruction is the discipline courses to which students transition to or take concurrently with EAP courses. These discipline courses may be supportive or unsupportive towards students' transfer of EAP skills. The social constructivist approach was used as the theoretical foundation, which views that overall knowledge as dependent upon human practices, being manifested in and out of interaction between individuals and their world, and developed within a social context. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 EAP instructors. The interview transcripts were analyzed using a process that is two- fold: involving de-contextualizing and re-contextualizing. Firstly, with decontextualizing, a chunk of text is identified as a unit of analysis, when it is taken out of context from the transcript, it is still meaningful as a unit. Secondly, all the units can be re-contextualized when transferred from the interview transcript to a single category of units that contribute to a similar pattern towards the research question(s). The findings revealed that EAP instructors perceived both supportive and unsupportive aspects of different components of the EAP transfer climate [opportunities (lack of) in the course structure, support (lack of) for EAP transfer from discipline instructors or peers in the disciplines]. This study’s findings also build on existing conceptualizations of transfer climate. The findings also outline 8 steps that can be taken to prepare students for the transfer climate, 7 within EAP courses, and 1 within discipline courses. Both practical implications and implications for future research are outlined.