Teaching approaches and language proficiency in English-medium instruction teaching

Conference poster, 2024

In some domains of Swedish higher education (HE), English-medium instruction (EMI) is now more common than education in the national language (Malmström & Pecorari, 2022). However, concerns have been raised about the consequences of EMI. Classroom observation research (Doiz & Lasagabaster, 2021) has indicated a tendency for EMI to rely on teacher-centered rather than student-centered pedagogy, contrary to HE teaching policy (ESG, 2015). Various factors influence EMI teachers’ teaching style (Sahan et al., 2021), but Dang and Vu (2020) indicate a link between linguistic competence and pedagogical competence, yet no definitive empirical evidence exists.

This pilot study investigates the relationship between the English language proficiency of EMI teachers and their teaching approaches. Teachers (n = 82) from three universities in Sweden completed tests of productive and receptive knowledge of general and academic vocabulary. The teachers also answered the Approaches to Teaching Inventory, a questionnaire that indicates variation in teachers’ approaches to teaching (Trigwell et al., 2005). The findings reveal a significant correlation between the English proficiency of EMI teachers and teacher-focused teaching: teachers with lower levels of English proficiency were more likely to adopt a teacher-centered approach. This research contributes to the continued discussion about quality in internationalized HE.

References

Dang, T. K. A., & Vu, T. T. P. (2020). English-medium instruction in the Australian higher education: Untold stories of academics from non-native English-speaking backgrounds. Current Issues in Language Planning, 21(3), 279–300. https://doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2019.1641350

Doiz, A., & Lasagabaster, D. (2021). Analysing EMI Teachers’ and Students’ Talk about Language and Language Use (pp. 34–55). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003134534-3

ESG (2015). Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG). Brussels, Belgium.

Malmström, H. & Pecorari, D. (2022). Språkval och internationalisering: Svenskans och engelskans roll inom forskning och högre utbildning. Språkrådet (Institutet för språk och folkminnen). Retrieved (2023-11-17): http://sprakochfolkminnen.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1619750&dswid=7977

Sahan, K., Rose, H., & Macaro, E. (2021). Models of EMI pedagogies: At the interface of language use and interaction. System, 101, 102616. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2021.102616

Trigwell, K., Prosser, M., & Ginns, P. (2005). Phenomenographic pedagogy and a revised Approaches to teaching inventory. Higher Education Research & Development, 24(4), 349–360. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360500284730