An EMI lecturer’s assessment practices with engineering laboratory reports

Abstract

Abstract EMI assessment research designed to compare academic achievement in EMI and L1-medium courses aims to examine language and content learning outcomes (Dafouz & Camacho-Miñano, 2016; Hernández-Nanclares & Jiménez-Munoz, 2015; Yang, 2015). However, these studies provide little insight into learning processes. A genre analysis perspective, in contrast, can offer a deeper understanding of the development of student disciplinary literacy. Based on genre analysis studies on student writing (Nesi & Gardner, 2012; Parkinson, 2017; Swales, 1990), we aim to describe the written genre in student laboratory reports from an EMI course on a Mechanical Engineering degree programme. Seven students’ laboratory reports as well as the lecturer’s instructions, the assessment rubric, and written feedback were examined using genre analysis. This case study contributes to the emerging literature on assessment in EMI by foregrounding the advantages of genre analysis as an analytical methodology and shedding light on students’ development of literacy in disciplinary writing.