Teachers’ receptive and productive vocabulary sizes in English-medium instruction

Journal article, 2023

Despite the growing popularity of English-medium instruction (EMI), theconditions for and consequences of teaching and learning academiccontent through English are poorly understood. The ability of teachers inthe EMI environment (i.e. disciplinary or‘content’teachers) to engagestudents in English is central in this regard since intelligible interactionbetween the teacher and the students is a precondition for learning whenthe medium of instruction is English. Across EMI contexts, concerns havebeen raised about teachers’level of English proficiency (their ability tospeak, write, read and listen in English), but research measuring theirEnglish proficiency attainments is lacking. This paper focuses on a keydimension of teachers’English proficiency: vocabulary knowledge.Teachers (n= 130) took tests of receptive and productive knowledge ofgeneral and academic English vocabulary. The testing revealed significantproficiency variation in the cohorts tested, with some teachers exhibitingvery low levels (<3000 words) of receptive and productive vocabularyknowledge. Implications for teaching in EMI are discussed.