Introduction

Abstract

Late afternoon, late July. A window is open on the third floor of an eight-storey building, on a university campus not able to boast particularly successful architecture but fortunate enough to have good transport links to major airports, a location with a high safety record and a few other features that make it reasonably attractive to international students. At the desk in front of the window a tutor of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) — on a fixed-term contract for the duration of the summer preparatory course — is writing feedback on a draft essay. The mark on the final version will decide whether the student who wrote the essay will be able to start, in two months’ time, the postgraduate course for which his family have been saving for a number of years. Two floors above, the head of the EAP unit is having a catch-up with an academic from one of the departments expecting to receive a large number of the international students on the summer preparatory course. In another building on the same campus, the personal assistant to the head of international development forwards him an email with a report about the potential impact of a new government policy on recruiting international students. Several miles away, on a bus on the way home, an EAP course director is composing an email on his smartphone about double marking and moderating marks for the end-of-course written essays.