EMI Teachers Research Articles

Teacher effectiveness in English-medium instruction and students’ academic achievement: A value-added model in action

This study aimed to investigate the association between general science teachers’ effectiveness in teaching through English and students’ academic success in Debre Birhan City. In addition, it sought to determine which dimensions of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) accounted for the greatest variability. Furthermore, it examined whether demographic variables such as sex, qualification, and experience co-variated with students’ academic achievement (SAA). A non-experimental correlational design was employed. The study sample included 45 randomly selected teachers and 1575 students in 45 classrooms. A teacher effectiveness questionnaire and an academic achievement test were used as data collection tools implementing the principle of the value-added model. The findings revealed a strong relationship between teachers’ effectiveness in teaching science through English and SAA, with pedagogical knowledge being the highest contributor and experience co-variating with SAA. The unstandardized coefficient output also reveals that SAA increases by a certain percentage as every scale of EMI increases. The study recommends on-the-job training for EMI teachers. Additionally, experienced teachers should work in pairs with younger teachers and share fresh perspectives on teaching methods and effective language use. The introduction of EMI implementation policies is also recommended.

Are students prepared and supported for English medium instruction in Chinese higher education to promote educational equality?

The global spread of EMI is a response to the internationalisation and marketisation of higher education. However, students may not fully benefit from EMI programmes if they are not adequately prepared. The extent to which students have been prepared to succeed in such programmes and acquire English as linguistic capital is an underexplored area. The present study addressed the research gap by investigating the preparation and support that students received in EMI programmes in Chinese higher education. The study adopted a mixed-methods design by collecting responses to an online survey from 248 students in different Chinese universities and conducting semi-structured interviews with 12 students regarding their preparation and support for, their learning motivation and views of EMI programmes as well as their expectations of EMI teachers. The findings showed that the students did not seem to be sufficiently prepared to achieve the dual goal of EMI (i.e., subject and language learning) and that the EMI programmes tended to widen the gap between students with different English proficiency and might lead to educational inequality. Finally, the students were critical of the quality of EMI teachers and favoured teachers with high English proficiency and pedagogical skills in delivering sophisticated content knowledge. These findings suggested that future studies need to explore strategies to better prepare and support students to benefit from EMI programmes and promote educational equality. Furthermore, the criteria for recruiting EMI teachers should be reconsidered to meet students’ learning needs and development.

Co-journeying with ChatGPT in tertiary education: identity transformation of EMI teachers in Taiwan

ABSTRACT This paper responds to the prevalent discourse on the ‘lack of English proficiency’ among EMI teachers in contexts where English is used as an additional language. It explores how AI-powered tools, particularly ChatGPT, enable EMI teachers in Taiwan to leverage their expertise and teach in English with more confidence. This study first describes the training of an EMI PD programme. Then it reports on the challenges and strategies, and the extended and innovative use by EMI teachers after the training. By reporting on the experiences of three EMI teachers, this study shows how collaborating with ChatGPT contributes to developing an empowered EMI teacher identity. This study fills a research gap, shedding light on the transformative potential of collaborating with ChatGPT to transform content teachers’ identities into an EMI teacher identity.

Enhancing Chinese students’ willingness to communicate (WTC) in EMI classrooms: Do learning motivation and academic self-efficacy matter?

Due to the vital role of classroom communications in the success of EMI courses, factors driving students to communicate with teachers and classmates need to be recognized. In this respect, several scholars worldwide have explored different emotional, personal, and environmental sources of students’ willingness to communicate (WTC). Nonetheless, the impacts of learning motivation and academic self-efficacy have somehow been overlooked in previous investigations. That is, few investigations have inspected the effects of these personal factors on students’ decisions to speak. Additionally, no research study has been carried out on the consequences of motivation and self-efficacy for EMI students’ decisions to communicate. To address the mentioned gaps, this investigation measured the influences of learning motivation and academic self-efficacy on Chinese EMI students’ WTC. In doing so, three closed-ended questionnaires were given to 303 Chinese EMI students. Correlation tests indicated positive links between WTC, academic self-efficacy, and learning motivation. Regression analysis also demonstrated the significant, positive effects of learning motivation and academic self-efficacy on Chinese EMI students’ WTC. The results of this inquiry could be beneficial for all EMI teachers and teacher trainers.

Collaborative Professional Development in English Medium Instruction

In recent years, the need for focused student‑centred teaching in general, and greater and higher quality interaction in particular, has been widely recognized.However, for this to occur in the field of EMI, it is believed that teachers need to undertake some re‑examination of their teaching approaches and/or professional development. The present study carried out in Italy by means of a data‑driven research protocol aims to investigate and improve the professional development of EMI teachers. Results and conclusions will hopefully contribute to further enrich the knowledge‑base of researchers and practitioners working in the field.

Facilitating content learning through translanguaging in secondary EMI science classrooms

AbstractDespite the rigorous efforts made to promote the use of English as a medium of instruction (EMI), EMI teachers still face linguistic and pedagogical challenges in effectively delivering subject content in English. Previous research has revealed that, faced with such challenges, teachers employ various strategies to make subject knowledge accessible to students, including pedagogical translanguaging. However, there is little empirical evidence of how EMI teachers deploy pedagogical translanguaging to facilitate content learning in secondary science classrooms, particularly in countries or regions where English is not widely used outside schools. Against this backdrop, the current study adopts a qualitative approach to examine the pedagogical translanguaging practices of two EMI science teachers, as well as the factors contributing to their practices at an international secondary school in Shanghai, China. The methods used were video‐assisted classroom observation and semi‐structured interviews. These were subjected to multimodal conversation analysis and thematic analysis, respectively. The findings reveal that teachers’ pedagogical translanguaging practices involve strategically incorporating and orchestrating all multilingual, multimodal, and multisemiotic resources available to facilitate meaning‐making and enhance students’ comprehension of subject knowledge. Meanwhile, personal, social, and contextual factors play an important role in shaping teachers’ pedagogical translanguaging practices. This study showcases pedagogical translanguaging as a strategic means to create space for teaching and learning in EMI contexts, and provides useful insights into potential improvements to EMI pedagogy.

Rethinking of EMI in higher education: a critical view on its scope, definition and quality

ABSTRACT Although it has grown at an exponential rate globally, English medium instruction’s (EMI) conceptually problematic nature steered more confusion than clarity and consensus in the contexts of higher education (HE). In the field literature, the dominant paradigm pertains to descriptive statements rather than definitions and research seemed to reach a saturation point where a new vision is required that of problem solving. By employing a critical stance towards globalisation hence internationalisation and opting for a multilingual perspective, this conceptual paper presents arguments firstly on the concepts that are involved in the definition of EMI and then on EMI teacher training and EMI policy while keeping a focus on learning in EMI HE settings. In so doing, definitions for the concepts of EMI and EMI quality are provided as prospective reference points for HE stakeholders to adhere to during their EMI development practices. Concluding remarks on internationalization as being one of the motivations to implement EMI in HE settings and calls for research on critical EMI and EMI content teacher competencies are also provided.

The Application of EMI in Higher Education: Learners Cognition Perspective

An examination of Chinese college students cognition about EMI learning is presented here. The findings, based on 112 surveys and a regression analysis equation, provide insight into the complexity and variety of EMI students thought processes and directly impact their approach to EMI study within their chosen disciplines. As a result of being affected by a wide variety of contextual variables, each participants learning results were uniquely shaped by the EMI intervention. When trying to put their knowledge into reality, students face several challenges, such as the diction skill, dialectical thinking, and understanding of their EMI teachers. This study argues for a methodical and progressive strategy for advancing and promoting EMI learning with efficient information delivery and skilled cross-cultural communication for EMI implementation in higher education.

Pronunciation in EMI

The consolidation of English as a global language has brought with it the need to reconceptualise aspects such as English pronunciation, which seems to be experiencing a detachment from the native norm and the integration of multicultural identities. EMI students have been reported to favour intelligibility over accurate pronunciation, as they represent a community of learners for whom English is a tool rather than a target. As previous research has reported that pronunciation may be an anxiety factor for students in speaking exchanges, this study explored how 126 EMI students envision the learning of pronunciation, their attitudes towards EMI teachers’ pronunciation and their pronunciation anxiety upon interaction with different interlocutors in their EMI context: teachers, local peers, L1 English international peers and L2 English international peers. The data from a questionnaire and focus groups revealed that these EMI learners conceptualize pronunciation as a communication tool rather than a subject to be learnt; they revealed that they do not experience uneasiness during lessons owing to their lecturers’ pronunciation, expressing that fluency is more important than pronunciation accuracy. Finally, they showed more pronunciation anxiety if the interlocutor was the teacher or an L1 English speaker than if it was a local peer or L2 English speaker.

Training on English as a Medium of Instruction: Moroccan Public Secondary School Math and Science Teachers

This study examines the experiences and perceptions of Moroccan public secondary school math and science teachers on training for English as a medium of instruction (EMI). In order to meet this objective, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six EMI math and science teachers from Moroccan public secondary schools in Rabat-Salé-Kénitra. The findings revealed that there was a shortage of training on EMI. All of the EMI teachers did not receive specialized EMI pre-service training. In addition, three undertook a short EMI in-service training, mainly at the beginning of their EMI teaching careers. Additionally, all of these EMI teachers explicitly expressed their need for future training for continuous improvement. Five of them desired additional training in the English language to improve their language proficiency. Three of these five teachers specifically wanted to learn scientific terminologies in English. Furthermore, one of these three teachers wanted to develop her speaking skills to communicate more effectively with students. Differently from the stream, an EMI teacher needed training in both the English language and EMI teaching methodologies. Overall, this study offers insights into this under-researched context of the EMI program in Morocco and provides recommendations for future research.

Teacher talk in English-medium instruction classes in Japanese universities

Abstract English-medium instruction (EMI) courses in higher education have increased dramatically over the past decade and Japan is no exception. In the implementation of EMI courses, the role of English and the local language (Japanese) during content education is a subject of debate. The present study analyses EMI teacher talk by looking at aspects such as speech structure, and the role of language during content-education. Twelve undergraduate classes from four academic subjects in Economics, Ethics in Science, Project Planning, and Development Studies (three classes from each subject) were observed and recorded. Transcripts from these classes were analysed using Christie’s (1989) classroom discourse approach of curriculum genre, and Bernstein’s (1996) notion of horizontal and vertical discourses. Research findings revealed that there are similarities in EMI teachers’ classroom speech structure. However, the learning context has an effect on the role of English language which in turn influences content education.

Students’ Writer Identities and Writing Practice in Tertiary English-Medium Instruction in China

This study adopts a case study approach to examine how students write in English-medium instruction contexts. It also explores why they write in this way from the perspective of writer identity. Four Chinese university students’ EMI course essays, as well as their interview and stimulated recall responses were collected. The analysis results presented three patterns of writer identity: (1) a member, as an EMI writer, of the academic community as the dominant self; (2) a student writer meeting the course requirements as the dominant self; (3) struggling between the two selves. Having different types of writer identities, the students wrote their EMI course essays in different ways. Their writings presented different features in terms of discoursal choice, language form and format. Suggestions for EMI teaching, EMI teacher training and curricula at the university level are provided.

EMI Teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding culture teaching in Chinese higher education

ABSTRACT Although the potential of English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) for intercultural learning and teaching is acknowledged, few studies have explored the teaching of culture in EMI programmes in higher education contexts. Thus, this study examined the perceptions and practices that six EMI teachers from a variety of disciplines have of culture and cultural instruction at a Chinese university. Data were obtained from 24 classroom observations and six post-observation interviews. Drawing on Larzen-Ostermark's tripartite culture-teaching orientations and Rasouli and Moradkhani's culture-teaching taxonomy, the findings revealed that teachers with a humanities and social sciences background had a fluid and dynamic view regarding the understanding of culture, while teachers with a science, technology, engineering and mathematics background did not recognise the need to incorporate cultural instruction into their EMI classes. In analysing classroom data, five categories of cultural instruction were identified: contrast, authentic material, groupwork, codeswitching and guided discussion of culture. The five categories are mainly in line with the affective and action orientations in Larzen-Ostermark's three-orientation framework. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of the study's findings for EMI policymakers and EMI teacher training programmes.

A multimodal analysis of pair work engagement episodes: Implications for EMI lecturer training

Lecturers' abilities to use semiotic resources to construct meaning and to create engagement play an important role in university classrooms where English is the medium of instruction (EMI). The main focus of this study is on how EMI lecturers enrolled in a professional development program use semiotic and interpersonal resources to engage students through pair work activities. Two analyses were conducted on a dataset of twelve micro-teaching sessions extracted from an EMI teacher training corpus. The first analysis identified the moves and pedagogical functions lecturers instantiated while carrying out engagement episodes (EEs). The findings of this analysis served to design the “Pair work engagement episodes framework”, which includes five basic moves: 1) contextualizing, 2) setting up, 3) monitoring, 4) eliciting, and 5) summarizing. The second analysis illustrated how the pedagogical functions found in each move of four EEs were constructed multimodally through verbal and non-verbal communicative modes (i.e., spoken, written, non-verbal materials, space, and posture). The pair work EEs framework and the multimodal analysis lend support to strategies that may be implemented in EMI professional development programs to enhance lecturers’ multimodal interactional competence.

A translanguaging and trans-semiotizing perspective on subject teachers’ linguistic and pedagogical practices in EMI programme

Abstract English as a medium of instruction (EMI), as a major agenda of language policy and planning and characterizing internationalization of higher education, has been increasingly adopted in global contexts. EMI teachers’ language and teaching practices in situated classroom contexts and the possible pedagogical challenges they encounter have not gained sufficient research attention in relation to the expansion of EMI. This qualitative study explored the experiences of nine EMI teachers from different disciplines in Chinese universities through investigating their linguistic and pedagogical practices in EMI teaching, the challenges they encounter, and how they co-ordinate semiotic resources with the affordance of the EMI context. The findings suggested that the teachers a) achieved professional development when developing different teaching materials for and perspectives on the same phenomenon to facilitate the understanding of students from various backgrounds; b) co-ordinated semiotic resources with an affordance of the EMI context to facilitate teaching, with the understanding that language is not merely language, but also a factor influencing knowledge construction, a lens for interpreting knowledge, and a part of the event or issue; and, c) attempted to integrate content/language in learning, despite lacking CLIL-related professional training. The implications for language policy and EMI programme development are discussed.

English Medium Instruction: What do we know so far and what do we still need to find out?

AbstractEnglish Medium Instruction (EMI), as a phenomenon occurring in the non-Anglophone world, has been matched by a growth in research output on the topic and is now an important and established field of study. A great deal of research attention has been devoted to attitudes held by the key stakeholders in this form of education: teachers, students, and policy makers. Yet, there are many other important questions that remain unanswered, the most important of which are: What are the outcomes of this form of instruction? What is the social and economic impact of EMI? How can EMI teachers improve their teaching? And how can learners help themselves to improve their learning?

Training teachers of English as a medium of instruction: The use of metadiscourse devices

This paper explores the outcomes of training pragmatics identifying the metadiscourse devices that are used by the content teachers enrolled on a course leading to a university qualification for teaching in English within the context of a Spanish-speaking country. Specifically, I focus on the analysis of the frequencies of the textual and interactional devices used by university lecturers during an online English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) course with the aim of identifying the use of devices and how it could affect in their profession. The method followed involved the analysis of one hundred teaching units. The first step of this analysis was to collect the final projects written during three academic years by EMI university lecturers who were enrolled on an online course at Universitat Politècnica de València. I then identified the frequencies of textual and interactional devices, analysed their functions in the teaching unit and compiled examples. The results were later compared with the pragmatic training received during the training course and I also proposed some guidelines to help EMI teachers improve the use of metadiscourse devices. Finally, conclusions that could be useful for EMI trainers and trainees were drawn.

Teacher preparedness for English-medium instruction

Abstract This paper focuses on lecturers’ preparedness to teach EMI courses. Although many higher education institutions worldwide have rushed to jump on the EMI bandwagon, a strikingly low percentage of them have deemed it necessary to organise pre-service or in-service courses to help practitioners tackle this new teaching scenario. As a result, some potential teachers are reluctant to take part in EMI programmes, while some in-service EMI teachers complain because of a feeling of helplessness that arises from what they feel as lack of assistance from their institutions. In this article, after reviewing recent surveys on current practices in the training and accreditation of university teachers in EMI, I will examine what skills EMI teachers consider essential to deliver their classes effectively, whether they believe those can or even should be accredited, and, last but not least, how universities could support EMI teacher preparation. This analysis will allow us to reach EMI stakeholders by sharing research findings with them. Finally, a research agenda for future work on teacher preparedness for EMI will be put forward in an attempt to fill the gaps found in the review of the literature on the topic.

The challenges of English medium instruction for subject lecturers: a shared viewpoint

Abstract English medium instruction (EMI) is seen as a site for improving students’ English language, yet the role of the EMI lecturer in achieving this is contested. Views on what constitutes appropriate training and professional development for EMI lecturers also differ regarding English language skills and EMI-specific methodology. Using Q methodology, this paper explores these issues from a particular perspective, a synthetic viewpoint based on six EMI lecturers with very similar views. Its voice is pro-EMI yet has significant concerns regarding the workload involved, is insecure about its own linguistic performance, fears a loss of subject content depth, and questions the effectiveness of EMI for students learning a subject. The paper highlights the importance of such feelings in relation to perceived language and pedagogy challenges and considers the broader implications for EMI teacher training interventions regarding the practices of disciplinary knowledge-building and the linguistic and communicative resources used to enact them.

English medium of instruction in Chinese higher education: a systematic mapping review of empirical research

Abstract In 2001, the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China issued guidelines to promote the quality of higher education and to advocate the expansion of the use of English (Ministry of Education (MoE). 2001. Guanyu jiaqiang gaodeng xuexiao benke jiaoxue gongzuo tigao jiaoxue zhiliang de ruogan yijian [Guidelines for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Teaching at Higher Education Institutions]. Available at: http://old.moe.gov.cn/publicfifiles/business/htmlfifiles/moe/moe_309/200412/4682.html). This paper reviews empirical studies in English and Chinese on EMI in Chinese higher education published from 2001 to 2019, during the last two decades since these guidelines were released. The review contributes to the field of EMI by documenting, analysing and synthesising empirical evidence and by situating EMI studies in China in the global trends of EMI research. The review aims to give an overview of studies targeted at both global and local audiences, therefore, publications in both English and Chinese were included. To select the Chinese articles the core journals indexed by CNKI were searched, and for the English articles, we used ERIC, IBSS, SCOPUS and WOS databases. After excluding theoretically oriented studies, literature reviews and commentaries, 42 articles remained. The in-depth analysis revealed that the main topics of these studies included the student perception, implementation and educational practices, and the role of language. We conclude that in general there are insufficient empirical studies, especially about EMI teachers’ perspectives to inform policies and practices at the micro, meso and macro level. Based on the findings, directions for further research are identified and recommendations for methodological approaches for future studies are also made.