Volume 52, Issue 2 - Special Issue: English-medium education in the global society

This study investigates whether English-medium instruction (EMI) has an impact on Chinese undergraduates' English proficiency and affect in English learning and use. A cross-section of 136 sophomores and juniors were drawn from an English-medium and a parallel Chinese-medium program. Data included: (a) participants' scores on two national standardized English proficiency tests; (b) their English-related affect as measured by three scales adapted from Gardner's (2004) Attitude/Motivation Test Battery; (c) their perceptions of EMI in Chinese tertiary education elicited with a survey developed by the Chinese Ministry of Education (2006), and (d) interviews with 10 focal students from the English- and Chinese-medium programs. Results showed no statistically significant effect of medium of instruction on English proficiency or affect in English learning and use. However, extent of satisfaction with EMI, perceived necessity for EMI, and perceived increases in study burden had statistically significant effects on the outcome measures. Additionally, prior English proficiency was the strongest predictor of subsequent English proficiency and English-related affect. These findings raise concerns about the quality of the focal English-medium program and point to students' perceptions of EMI and prior English proficiency as crucial influences on further language learning and use.

Drawing on data from a 4-year longitudinal study of literacy development at an English-medium university in Qatar, this paper aims to document the challenges and development of multilingual students' literacy skills in their transition to college. Interviews reveal students' challenges during the first semester in terms of reading comprehension difficulties stemming from limited vocabulary knowledge, background knowledge, and reading stamina; in addition, students describe difficulties understanding the genre expectations and style of English academic writing. Despite these challenges, interviews also reveal development in students' academic reading and writing as their understanding of college writing expectations and their use of learning strategies and resources increase. In addition, analysis of student writing using corpus-based text analysis software reveals indicators of academic writing development such as increase in the use of academic register, elaboration, and reasoning. Together, these findings contribute to an understanding of challenges and academic development of students in English-medium universities.

This study examines the development of pragmatic competence among 48 first-year students in an English-medium college in Japan. The students were assessed on their ability to express opinions appropriately in formal and informal situations on three occasions during one academic year. Qualitative data on their sociocultural experiences were collected through interviews, class observation, and journals. Results revealed that although production of informal opinions showed strong progress, ability to express opinions in formal situations did not develop. This was explained by the students' lack of attention to sociocultural language use. Because classroom teachers encouraged direct modes of communication, disregarding politeness considerations, students developed a wrong assessment of target form-function-context mappings that constrained their progress. Findings revealed that academic English proficiency and pragmatic competence did not develop at the same rates.

This paper considers the needs and challenges of using English as a medium of instruction in Hong Kong universities, where oral Cantonese and written Chinese are the more dominant local languages. It then presents one way of trying to address the needs of the students in these institutions by reporting on the Scaffolding Literacy in Academic and Tertiary Environments (SLATE) project, which was an attempt to adopt a genre-based approach to literacy teaching at a large English-medium public university in Hong Kong. Drawing on work done by the Sydney School genre theorists (Rose & Martin 2012), the SLATE team first profiled the literacy needs of students in particular disciplines. They then used these field-specific understandings of language to develop pedagogical material to scaffold students from non-English speaking background into developing discipline-specific understandings of language. This material was embedded into literacy support for the students within the core units of study of the discipline. In embedding this support, the SLATE team adapted the Teaching Learning Cycle (Rothery 1996) to an online context. In order to do this, they theorised feedback as Negotiated Construction and used it to help students understand some of the features of academic writing. The project described here demonstrates the viability of adopting genre-based approaches to language and literacy teaching in online environments to support the needs of non-English speaking students in institutions where English is the medium of instruction in Hong Kong and elsewhere.

After achieving democracy in 1994, South Africa experienced major socio-political reforms in a number of areas, including a new constitution, language policy reforms, and new national curricula for schools. Due to the perceived instrumental value of English, many local schools rejected indigenous languages as medium of instruction in favour of English. This shift toward English-medium education has resulted in the limited development of students' academic language proficiency and hampered their access to higher education. At the University of the Free State, 65% of students struggle to understand academic content in English. This paper describes the national curricular reforms; the language-in-education policy and the intervention designed to meet this challenge at the university. The paper reports the implementation process of the academic literacy program and preliminary findings on the effectiveness of this intervention.