Course and assessment development: Creating an integrated L-R-W assessment for an EAP programme

Abstract

The Lincoln University Te Whare Wanaka o Aoraki English for Academic Purposes programme has been running successfully for many years with few major alterations. Given recent changes in technology and student expectations, course redevelopment is essential. One part of this redevelopment work relates to the writing part of the course. Initially, the overall redevelopment was driven by the ever-changing impact of AI in ELT (Hockly, 2023), and the long-established concept of target language use domains (Bachman and Palmer, 1996). In many ways the project grew from there. After analysing feedback from former students and other stakeholders, reviewing the literature, and considering course, assessment, and learner needs, it was decided that an integrated writing assessment be developed for use in our new programme. Many of you, as TESL professionals, will be engaged in course, assessment, and/or curriculum design at stages of your careers. In this presentation you will learn what we encountered through this design process: sometimes it was the good, the bad, and ugly, and others merely the straightforward and mundane. When presenting, I will look at some of the background planning, the steps taken, and the journey so far in developing this integrated writing task.