The Bologna process and its explicit call for transfer and transferability turns the implementation of ESP and EAP into a matter of pedagogical design for students’ development of communication skills. One of the main challenges, then, is to tackle the way ESP/EAP assignments are operationalized and assessed so that students learn to communicate in relevant and useful ways. In response, this paper offers three examples of writing-to-learn settings to suggest that reliance on templates and end-user application to obtain transferability can be counter-productive. The cases display integrated ESP/EAP modules combining genre awareness, writing strategies, and peer learning to help generate genuine ways of engaging with text. In addressing problems of transfer they propose possible ways for learning ‘beyond the template’.