English medium instruction: Comparing teacher beliefs in secondary and tertiary education

Jessica G Briggs,Ernesto Macaro,Julie Dearden

doi:10.14746/ssllt.2018.8.3.7

Jessica G Briggs, Ernesto Macaro + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.2018.8.3.7

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Abstract

Learning content through the medium of a second language is a form of education which is growing rapidly in both secondary and tertiary educational phases. Yet, although considerable research now exists on these phases of education viewed separately, virtually no comparisons have been made between the two phases. This study compared beliefs about English medium instruction (EMI) held by 167 secondary and tertiary EMI teachers from 27 countries. Teachers’ beliefs were elicited in four key areas: EMI teachers’ goals, EMI policy, benefits and drawbacks to students, and challenges to teachers. The findings indicate that secondary teachers felt more strongly that EMI provides students with a high quality education. More secondary than tertiary teachers reported an institutional policy on the English proficiency level required of teachers to teach through EMI, yet in neither phase was there evidence of adequate support to reach a required proficiency level. Teachers deemed EMI beneficial to advancing students’ English but felt that EMI would affect academic content, with no clear difference between the phases. Our conclusions indicate that EMI is being introduced without thorough institutional stakeholder discussion and therefore without clear policies on levels of teacher expertise. Neither is there evidence of a dialogue between phases regarding the challenges faced by EMI teachers and students.

Highlights

In both secondary and tertiary education the world is seeing a major transformation in the way that the teaching of English as a foreign or second language (L2) is being conceived of and offered to adolescents and young adults
We would propose, is not merely restricted to focusing on raising content teachers’ level of general English and on the pedagogical changes necessary to ensure that academic subjects are not affected
Teachers in both phases believed that the greater exposure brought about by English medium instruction (EMI) was beneficial to students in terms of their English language learning

Summary

Introduction

In both secondary and tertiary education the world is seeing a major transformation in the way that the teaching of English as a foreign or second language (L2) is being conceived of and offered to adolescents and young adults. A “content subject” is being taught in a language which is not the first language (L1) of (usually) the majority of the students in a class, nor of the majority population outside that class It is this latter criterion that distinguishes English medium instruction (EMI) from what some researchers call content-based learning, or content-based language learning (e.g., Met, 1999; Stoller, 2004). In countries such as the United States or Australia, English may be an L2 for the majority of the students in a class, it is not an L2 for the majority of people outside the class. In this paper we are not including the latter educational setting in our definition of EMI

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