A Case Study of Connecting EFL Course Content with College Students’ Major Areas of Study in Mandatory EFL Classes

Abstract

This study attempted to examine the possibility of drawing connections of prescribed EFL course content with the students’ major areas of study in a mandatory EFL classroom at a South Korean university and analysed how the students made associations. Data were collected through in-class presentation planning sheets, video-recorded presentations, surveys, and related documents. The 15-week in-class project seemed to help the students improve their English skills and provided them an opportunity to explore content in their major fields. Of particular note are the presentations of Chinese majoring groups that actively utilized their content course textbook written in Chinese but with an English translation and one Chemical Engineering group that did research about laughing gas, reinforcing the content knowledge in a language class and expanding field-relevant vocabulary and expressions respectively. It is meaningful that this study attempted to find a niche in a very limited EFL learning environment through a challenging activity to integrate the students’ major course content into EFL classes.