Developing a set of criteria to evaluate the authenticity of EAP materials

In this blog post, I share some preliminary findings from an exploratory study into EAP materials that I conducted in 2023. In this study, I started with the premise that teaching materials are the ‘instantiation of principles drawn from the broad fields of second language acquisition theory and language teaching theory‘ (Timmis, 2002, p. 217). I then examined the extent to which a set of my own materials aligns with the principle of authenticity, and explored ways to resolve the so-called ‘EAP genre paradox’.