English-medium instruction for subject courses in tertiary education: Reactions from Taiwanese undergraduate students

Abstract

This paper reports part of the results of a research project, the main goal of which is to evaluate the implementation of English as the medium of instruction (EMI) for content courses at a private university in northern Taiwan. The perspectives of both students and teachers were examined in the project. This paper, however, reports mainly the results obtained from the students in terms of the following four aspects: students’ reactions to the EMI subject courses, influence of English-medium instruction on the students, difficulties that students encountered in their EMI courses, and their English language learning needs observed during the research process. The subjects in this study include 370 undergraduate students and six professors from six departments in the three major colleges at the university investigated. Research methods used to collect data include pilot interviews with students, student questionnaire, and face-to-face interviews with professors teaching EMI subject courses. The results reveal that overall, although the students in this study generally did not think that they had a high level of comprehension of their EMI lectures, most of them did not show negative attitudes towards the courses. Moreover, most of the students surveyed agreed that English instruction helped them improve their English language proficiency, especially in terms of listening.