ABSTRACT
The English for academic purposes course is part of the third term of a three-term course in academic writing at a UK university. It is open access and non-assessed. There are five to seven parallel multidisciplinary and multinational classes with about 10–16 students in each. The classes are held in computer labs with a machine for each student, though students often work on their own computers. The course provides one two-hour session per week for six weeks. The first two sessions introduce students to corpus work and how to build their own corpus. Sessions three to six each consist of one hour spent analysing and discussing texts, focusing on a specific discoursal issue; in the second hour students investigate the issue in their own corpora and discuss their results with other students. The students' corpora are monitored by the teacher on a weekly basis. In terms of course evaluation, students complete a feedback questionnaire at the end of the course.
