RETHINK, REDESIGN, RELAX: COVID FAST-TRACKED ME TO EPIC

When the International Committee recommended that we move from an EAP approach to an EPIC approach, most of us applauded the decision. Our courses would include the four skills, 21st skills, and they would be interactive, meaningful, and relevant to today’s learner. Whoa… that’s a lot. Let’s do this slowly. Then, along came Covid-19, and Zoom in the Spring of 2020. Survival mode kicked in. How could I keep my students actively engaged on a virtual platform? I tried out new apps, added games but It wasn’t working. I was talking to a wall of black boxes. Then I realized that basically, I was teaching an EAP (reading) course. Something had to change – drastically and quickly. But it was not feasible to write a whole new course. So, I found myself taking my tried and true materials and rethinking, and then redesigning the materials so that they were more interactive. As students became more actively engage, I began relaxing. In this short talk, I will first touch on the theoretical approach (Richard Schmidt “noticing hypothesis and Merill Swain’s “output hypothesis”) to EPIC approach I took. Then I will share how I redesigned many existing EAP/“reading” activities to make them suitable for group work in Breakout Rooms during a Zoom lesson. And finally, I will share what some of my students have had to say about this change in approach.