Aligning EAP teaching, learning, and assessment: A case study from Taiwan

In 2021, Taiwan’s Ministry of Education launched the Programme on Bilingual Education for Students in College (BEST Programme) to enhance students’ English for Academic Purposes (EAP) skills and expand English Medium Instruction (EMI). Central to this initiative is the BEST Test of English Proficiency (BESTEP), designed to reflect language demands in university contexts. Performance descriptors developed across Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) A2–B2 levels cover context, communication function, and linguistic performance. A mixed-methods sequential explanatory design was employed, entailing a survey of 805 students and 220 EAP/ EMI teachers, followed by interviews with a subset of participants. Analyses revealed broad agreement on the descriptors’ relevance, though EMI teachers differed on the relevance of and student readiness for some descriptors. Students’ perceived difficulty aligned with their proficiency, with tasks like synthesizing information identified as challenging. Findings highlight the value of stakeholder input in validating the BESTEP’s descriptors and guiding EAP course design in support of academic progress. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .