Intertextual Episodes in Lectures: A Classification from the Perspective of Incidental Learning from Reading

In a parallel language environment it is important that teaching takes account of both the languages students are expected to work in.  Lectures in the mother tongue need to offer access to textbooks in English and encouragement to read. This paper describes a preliminary study for an investigation of the extent to which they actually do so. A corpus of lectures in English for mainly L1 English students (from BASE and MICASE)  was examined for the types of reference to reading which occur, classified by their potential usefulness for access and encouragement. Such references were called ‘intertextual episodes’. Seven preliminary categories of intertextual episode were identified.  In some disciplines the text is the topic of the lecture rather than a medium for information on the topic, and this category was not pursued further. In the remaining six the text was a medium for information about the text. Three of them involved management, of texts by the lecturer her/him self, of student writing, or of student reading. The remaining three involved reference to the content of the text either introducing to students, reporting its content, or, really the most interesting category, relativizing it and thus potentially encouraging critical reading. Straightforward reporting that certain content was in the text at a certain point was the most common type, followed by management of student reading. Relativization was relatively infrequent. The exercise has provided us with categories which can be used for an experimental phase where the effect of different types of reference can be tested, and for observation of the references actually used in L1 lectures in a parallel-language environment

Introducing the Journal of English-Medium Instruction

[...]\ua0The contributions to this inaugural issue of JEMI all embody this broader understanding of EMI and speak to a varied group of stakeholders, including researchers in EMI and related fields, and practitioners in contexts of EMI, e.g., teachers, students, and university management. The authors of these contributions were invited by virtue of their expertise in six areas central to EMI: language policy, multilingualism, English language teaching, teacher preparation and (higher) education pedagogy, and assessment.[...

Language choice and internationalisation: The roles of Swedish and English in research and higher education

How strong is the status of English at Swedish universities today?The growing footprint of English over Swedish was one of the clearest drivers for Sweden’s 2009 Language Act. In the debate attending the Language Act, higher education and research were the societal domains widely perceived to have seen the greatest spread of English.The report Language choice and internationalisation presents the results of a study of the languages used for teaching and publication at Swedish universities. It is a follow-up to a similar study from 2010.The results show that the use of English at Swedish universities has continued to increase since 2010. The increase has been particularly great in the humanities, where Swedish was previously the dominant language of instruction. The trend is the same for language of publication. The proportion of doctoral theses and articles written in English has long been very high in some disciplines, such as the natural sciences and engineering and technology; now, a sharp increase has occurred in the volume of English-language research writing in the humanities and social sciences

Disciplinary literacies as a nexus for content and language teacher practice

This book is guided by two primary objectives, namely to “foster … reflection on the importance of paying attention to language in EMI experiences” and “to translate research findings into practice so that teachers find themselves in a stronger position to make optimal choices in their everyday teaching” (Lasagabaster & Doiz, this volume, p. 00). These objectives are supported by the inclusion of a final section in each chapterarticulating specific recommendations for EMI teacher practice. We will use this space to focus attention on these practical recommendations.\ua0The objective for this epilogue is thus consistent with the overarching purpose of the book: engaging readers in further discussion of what these recommendations regarding language (broadly speaking) mean for EMIpractice. Our discussion here is facilitated by viewing these recommendations through the theoretical lens of disciplinary discourse and disciplinary literacy (Airey, 2011, 2012, 2020; Airey & Linder, 2009; Airey et al.,2017; Becher, 1987; Linder, 2013)

Covarage and development of academic vocabulary in English medium instruction

This paper is centred in the context of English Medium Instruction (EMI) and is primarily concerned with advanced students’ productive knowledge of English academic vocabulary, widely regarded as a crucial dimension of successful academic communication. The study problematizes the claim that EMI is beneficial for students’ development of academic vocabulary knowledge. The investigative context is a technical university in Sweden where all degree programmes at graduate level use English as the medium of instruction. The corpus data include texts (n=80, approx. 720,000 words) produced by Master of Science students in their first and second year of study, written by home and international students. The study, using the Academic Vocabulary List (Gardner/Davis 2014), sets out to answer three research questions relating to knowledge and development of academic vocabulary in EMI: 1. What is the lexical coverage of advanced (master’s) level student writing, i.e., what proportion of words in students’ texts is academic? 2. Are home students and international students (all of whom have English as a foreign language) comparable in terms of their productive academic vocabulary knowledge? 3. Does students’ productive knowledge of academic words appear to develop during their studies? The results of the investigation can be summarized as follows: In the corpus as a whole, academic vocabulary items account for approximately 20% of all tokens. This figure is considerably higher than that found in many earlier studies. There are no significant differences between home and international students in any of the measures of vocabulary used (pertaining to lexical sophistication and diversity). Finally, the findings regarding lexical development across years of study are somewhat mixed; however, the overall picture presented by the various measures is one of significant but very modest gains in some areas and none in others. These findings call into question the actual effectiveness of EMI for academic vocabulary development. The overall contribution of the paper is an important step towards more comprehensive understanding of what expectations we may reasonably have of the development of English language competency in EMI

Covarage and development of academic vocabulary in English medium instruction

This paper is centred in the context of English Medium Instruction (EMI) and is primarily concerned with advanced students’ productive knowledge of English academic vocabulary, widely regarded as a crucial dimension of successful academic communication. The study problematizes the claim that EMI is beneficial for students’ development of academic vocabulary knowledge. The investigative context is a technical university in Sweden where all degree programmes at graduate level use English as the medium of instruction. The corpus data include texts (n=80, approx. 720,000 words) produced by Master of Science students in their first and second year of study, written by home and international students. The study, using the Academic Vocabulary List (Gardner/Davis 2014), sets out to answer three research questions relating to knowledge and development of academic vocabulary in EMI: 1. What is the lexical coverage of advanced (master’s) level student writing, i.e., what proportion of words in students’ texts is academic? 2. Are home students and international students (all of whom have English as a foreign language) comparable in terms of their productive academic vocabulary knowledge? 3. Does students’ productive knowledge of academic words appear to develop during their studies? The results of the investigation can be summarized as follows: In the corpus as a whole, academic vocabulary items account for approximately 20% of all tokens. This figure is considerably higher than that found in many earlier studies. There are no significant differences between home and international students in any of the measures of vocabulary used (pertaining to lexical sophistication and diversity). Finally, the findings regarding lexical development across years of study are somewhat mixed; however, the overall picture presented by the various measures is one of significant but very modest gains in some areas and none in others. These findings call into question the actual effectiveness of EMI for academic vocabulary development. The overall contribution of the paper is an important step towards more comprehensive understanding of what expectations we may reasonably have of the development of English language competency in EMI

Intertextual Episodes in Lectures: A Classification from the Perspective of Incidental Learning from Reading

In a parallel language environment it is important that teaching takes account of both the languages students are expected to work in. Lectures in the mother tongue need to offer access to textbooks in English and encouragement to read. This paper describes a preliminary study for an investigation of the extent to which they actually do so. A corpus of lectures in English for mainly L1 English students (from BASE and MICASE)  was examined for the types of reference to reading which occur, classified by their potential usefulness for access and encouragement. Such references were called ‘intertextual episodes’. Seven preliminary categories of intertextual episode were identified.  In some disciplines the text is the topic of the lecture rather than a medium for information on the topic, and this category was not pursued further. In the remaining six the text was a medium for information about the topic. Three of them involved management, of texts by the lecturer her/himself, of student writing, or of student reading. The remaining three involved reference to the content of the text either introducing it to students, reporting its content, or, really the most interesting category, relativizing it and thus potentially encouraging critical reading. Straightforward reporting that certain content was in the text at a certain point was the most common type, followed by management of student reading. Relativization was relatively infrequent. The exercise has provided us with categories which can be used for an experimental phase where the effect of different types of reference can be tested, and for observation of the references actually used in L1 lectures in a parallel-language environment

English for Academic Purposes at Swedish universities: Teachers’ objectives and practices

In a parallel-language environment the use of textbooks in English in courses otherwise in the local language is naturalized and not widely discussed or questioned. The aim of this study was to elicit the attitudes and syllabus infrastructure that underlie the practice. A large-scale survey was carried out and answers were obtained from over 20% of teachers at Swedish universities. Results confirmed that a majority regarded English as important during and/or after university studies and showed that they considered the use of Englishlanguage textbooks as providing a useful opportunity for incidental language learning. In strong contrast to the situation in a content and language integrated learning environment, only a small minority of courses were reported to have any specified learning outcome related to English. Open answers showed awareness of the benefits and risks of parallel-language practices, but no interest in making aims explicit. In our view, there is no contradiction between incidental learning and explicit aims, and course aims which remain implicit make rational planning and constructive alignment more difficult. They also inhibit discussion of appropriate methodology

Learning subject-specific L2 terminology:The effect of medium and order of exposure

In the globalised university environment, many university students are expected to learn subject-specific terminology in both the local language and the L2 (English) by learning from two media in two different languages: lectures in the local language and reading in L2 English. These students' bilingual learning is greatly affected by the learning strategies they employ. An experiment was designed to investigate the effects of student choice of learning media and the order of media on their learning and perception of learning of terminology in English. The results confirm that added exposure to terminology in different media, even in different languages, contributes to learning and show that, in some circumstances, learning terminology from reading may be more effective than learning it from a lecture. The results also show that students do not correctly judge their knowledge of terms learnt from different media in different languages and that they underestimate knowledge gained from reading in L2. Implications for teaching are discussed