Assessing Content Learning in EMI Courses: What are the Realities?

Conference: The Asian Conference on Education (ACE2022)
Title: Assessing Content Learning in EMI Courses: What are the Realities?
Stream: Higher Education
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Authors:
Malcolm Field, Kyorin University, Japan
Charles Wiz, Yokohama National University, Japan

Abstract:

In Japan, university-level programs taught in English have been driven by the Ministry of Education’s desire to internationalize universities and their curricula. These programs are believed to meet the domestic demand for a home internationalization experience (see Galloway & Rose, 2015; Takagi, 2017), develop second language skills thus improving the mobility of and opportunities for graduates, and concurrently enable students to acquire the content knowledge being taught in the second language. Even though Bradford and Brown (2017) attempted to define English as the Medium of Instruction (EMI) courses and differentiate them with Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Content-based Language Teaching (CBLT), amongst other courses, how these courses are promoted and taught remains ad hoc and institutions and instructors remain unclear of differences in pedagogical practice. There remains a dearth of evidence to show that the learning of the ‘content’ is equivalent to the same learning potentials provided through the first language. Based on previous work in Thailand and experiences in Japan in ‘EMI’ programs, we conducted a study across four universities with students of different English proficiencies. Based on a reading of a chapter from a Cultural Studies textbook, students completed a pre- and post-reading quiz to assess their comprehension of the key ideas in the content. Notwithstanding the limitations, including Covid19 constraints, the results confirm work done elsewhere, and our own suspicions that caution, clarification, and control of EMI programs in Japan is warranted. Content learning outcomes need to be studied more rigorously and clarified to potential stakeholders.

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