Keywords

8.1 The Research

In 2013, with a colleague, I received a request through the International Office to prepare a short EMI training course for a Western Sydney partner university in Taiwan. The background to the request was that the academic staff in the partner university were required to ‘switch’ their teaching language from Chinese to English and our task was to prepare them for this ‘switch’. It was clear that we needed to search for evidence-based research data to answer our own questions: “What does an EMI lesson ‘look like’ in a higher education setting and what are the existing problems?” and “How can an EMI lecturer plan and implement a successful EMI program to students in a particular educational and cultural context?” As the springboard, I read a number of reports in the EMI literature. The intention was to capitalize on current research to design a theoretically informed evidence-based EMI professional learning program.

Predominantly, the research sourced reported a host of general problems, most specifically relating to ‘English’, including a focus on the English language proficiency of lecturers, and/or how this became enacted as the fundamental criterion for the selection of lecturers into EMI programs. Concurrently I also identified a body of research ‘about’ EMI which included topics such as EMI lecturers’ perceptions and beliefs about their role in EMI teaching; lecturers and students’ attitudes towards EMI programs; and universities’ opinions on the usefulness of EMI training. I was mystified and disappointed at the extent to which the literature engaged with ‘peripheral EMI research’ in company with a paucity of research tackling the major issues of EMI teaching itself. I therefore refined the literature searching to include the key words ‘pedagogy’, ‘instruction’, and ‘strategies’ respectively in addition to ‘EMI teaching’. From the dozen articles located, yet again, ‘pedagogy’, ‘instruction’ and ‘strategies’ were relegated to the level of descriptive words. There was little in the way of relevant research identified addressing EMI pedagogically. Nearly a decade has since passed, and undertaking a similar search revealed some differences. Although investigating participants’ opinions and their English proficiency continues to dominate the EMI research trajectory in the field there is an increasing number of studies investigating teaching strategies in actual EMI classes and professional development programs.

Returning to the anecdote of the requested EMI training program for the partner university, I continued with the project and designed what I believed would be the most relevant program for the EMI participant lecturers, based on my experience as an EFL lecturer and research experience with bilingual teachers. That is, I had a vision for the content for the EMI training program to address what EMI lecturers might need, however my intent was then redirected to foreground what the EMI lecturers themselves viewed as their needs. Subsequently, I scoped the EMI training program participants to ascertain their current EMI lecturing status – challenges and facilitators – and what they anticipated the EMI training program would afford them. Consistent replies were: Language is our key problem; we just want to know how to say things in English so colloquial English would be useful; as for teaching methods, we are already experienced lecturers and we know how to teach. Reflecting on these replies raised the question: Do they really know what they need? On further reflection and considering how these data translated into a research methodology, I was alarmed to think that research reliant on collecting only opinion from the participants as data, could result in an approach that is narrow with one dimension. This was and continues to be a core methodology in EMI studies: recording participants’ views via survey and interviews and interpreting this as the state of reality. My dilemma ensued in that to prepare or deliver an EMI training program, I needed to know more about what was actually transpiring in an EMI classroom. At this point, the only information available was via the literature, which consistently reported what the lecturers, the students, and the universities had to say. Such research allocates too much power to the participants, assigning them an inordinate degree of credibility whereas researchers assign themselves to the sideline.

This inspired me to be resolute about including my own observations of the educational context, along with survey and stimulated recall data in this research. Observation is critical when data pertaining to teaching practices in specific educational and cultural contexts are to be collected. It enables a development of “a holistic understanding of the [classroom] phenomena under study that is as objective and accurate as possible” (Dewalt & Dewalt, 2002, p. 92). It allows a researcher to more fully explore “What does an EMI lesson look like in a Chinese, a Vietnamese, or a Spanish university class?” or “How does an EMI lecturer implement an EMI teaching in a particular educational and cultural context?” It allows researchers opportunities to witness first-hand, and to document and analyze the ongoing teaching and learning behaviour and encounters of both EMI lecturers and their students. We know too little of what is happening in a Chinese EMI class, a Vietnamese EMI class, or a Spanish EMI class. This resonates with the work of Macaro (2018), which suggests observing and recording what actually happens in EMI classes is an essential step to enact trustworthy EMI research, and arguably the first step towards development of EMI pedagogy. In addition, if the researcher as observer is an ‘insider’ of the discourse, observation will enable the research to capture direct data which “lends credence” to the researcher’s interpretations of the phenomenon and context under study (Bernard, 1994, p. 143).

Returning to the training anecdote, my experience with the first EMI training program offered to my Taiwanese colleagues, furnished me with other significant insights into EMI teaching and learning. As the program of training workshops continued the Taiwanese colleagues became more inclined to reflect on their EMI teaching contexts and were more confident to share additional information: “Our students are very quiet. They have limited English and are reluctant to talk in class”. These reflections again supported their belief that the challenges in their EMI teaching, was not only their English, but their students’. They were not acknowledging the pedagogical implications of students disengaging – issues not solved by ‘perfect’ English. The overemphasis on ‘English’ capabilities as being the sole culprit in determining un/successful EMI teaching and learning, sparked my thoughts that there needed to be a wider scope based on multiple theoretical perspectives to drive EMI teaching and research. The silences surrounding theoretical perspectives particularly teaching and learning theories in EMI research negates the importance for a researcher to capitalize on EMI research from pedagogical aspect and establish ‘hypotheses’ that can be used to analyze the data (White & Marsh, 2006, p. 31). For example, structuralist language theories would be useful in explaining EMI lecturers’ languages, and linguistic theories do not have sufficient capacity to interpret the classroom phenomena beyond language. Therefore, significant data from EMI classes would have been overlooked in any EMI research that failed to engage pedagogy and teaching and learning theories.

8.2 Summary of the Research

This research has now been completed and the findings are reported in this book. In brief, the Chinese lecturers did not experience a major shift to their pedagogical position in terms of conducting teaching through EMI and CMI. These lecturers’ pedagogical belief was determined by their rationalization of ‘best practice’ and shaped by the system of the institution where they worked. It is likewise impacted by the specific features of the discipline being taught. For most EMI lecturers, the instructional language switch from L1 to L2 constrained their capability but did not change their pedagogical perception. For some lecturers, teaching through EMI decreased their authority as confident subject knowledge experts giving rise to an unstable identity.

In general, expository teaching was preferred by the majority of the lecturers whereas constructivist teaching was favoured by fewer with some leaning towards a middle ground approach – combining elements of both. However, no clear boundary between the two pedagogies was observed to be the case across each individual lecturer’s teaching. Each was somewhere on the continuum between the two polar ends as was reported in Chap. 3. The pedagogy or pedagogies implemented by these lecturers was based on reasoned solutions to their specific teaching contexts and could not be attributed to mystical ‘culture’ as claimed in the literature. There was a shared reasoning operating across the lecturers, students and university executives that whilst learning resources were abundant, the lecturers were the most important source of knowledge for student learning. Therefore, as the source of subject knowledge, it is believed the most efficient pedagogy is through one-way expository knowledge transmission. Efficient pedagogy for them means having the knowledge conveyed and outcomes achieved in minimum time. These learning outcomes could well be questioned and very likely critiqued under Western preferred pedagogical measurement, however, this research finding provokes the thought and invites researchers and educators in higher education to consider the relationship between the suitability of expository or constructivist teaching in terms of the learner’s age, that is, the adult learner.

Findings in this research also exposed the relationship between pedagogy and the discipline involved. The Chinese EMI lecturers’ pedagogy, in many instances, was influenced by the nature of the subject being taught. When examining the observational data across the group, there was distinction between the pedagogy enacted in the STEM-related subjects and the social sciences. Predominantly a knowledge transmission style occurred across STEM related classes, compared to those in social sciences, however, it was not an unplanned broadcasting of knowledge. Their expository approach, whilst less favoured in Western education, was implemented with intensive and conscious cognitive engagement. Lecturers implemented a step-by-step approach to unfolding the content, leading, and scaffolding learners’ cognitive thinking. Comparatively, the social sciences and their related subjects were delivered through a more liberal constructivist approach. It can be proposed that STEM and related subjects can be more challenging for learners to lead their own learning, and particularly for undergraduate students whose education is, to a certain degree, at the stage of foundational knowledge and skill acquisition.

Institutionally, the EMI lecturers’ pedagogy was found to reflect the prevailing educational system and therefore sanctioned the university’s current needs. The structure around teaching in the University where this research was undertaken, and probably for other universities in the country, facilitates and endorses expository approaches in practice. In this specific research context, there was no separate lecture/tutorial arrangement, which highlights an additional difference from most Western systems. There were no separate tutorials at all, as the teaching format across all subjects that I observed, was a straight 90-min of lecture time. Including small group tutorials would have been a luxury when the university’s expectation for lecturers was to cover a large amount of information/knowledge within the minimum teaching hours allocated. Another feature of the lectures observed was the ‘normal’ class size was around 60 students across faculties. The venues were lecture halls where the seating organization did not facilitate opportunities for collaborative learning to be actualized. Whilst it cannot be argued that this seating and venue arrangement was the only factor determining the lecturers’ chosen pedagogy, it provided no supportive facilities for non-traditional learning environments.

The next major finding was that their pedagogy was constrained by their instructional language ‘switch’ from L1 to L2. Whilst this switch was not observed to impact their overall pedagogy it was the condition responsible for altering some pedagogical practices in minor ways. As this research confirms, the characteristic pedagogy for most of these EMI lecturers was a prevalence towards an expository style, accompanied by more cognitive and less emotional, managerial and behavioral engagement. Switching languages impacted the degree of interaction and engagement with students. This was particularly the circumstance for those lecturers where English proficiency was a challenge, whereby fluency issues decelerated their teaching processes. This was evident when the content displayed on PowerPoint slides was not covered during the lecture or was delivered with less explanation and examples; observed to be focusing on the ‘what’ rather than the ‘how’ and ‘why’. For these lecturers their efforts were on teaching or presenting the scheduled content knowledge. Any other type of interaction could further reduce the teaching time and therefore become a burden.

Language ‘switching’ was observed in this research, suffice to say, the EMI lecturers’ instructional language was shadowed by their L1. All the lecturers I observed in this research were influenced by their L1 at some point during their 90-min lecture. This included L1 to L2 transfer, ranging from pronunciation to the use of pragmatic strategies. Crosslinguistic influence was a ‘necessary’ condition for the EMI lecturers’ English instruction and arguably contributes to a natural pathway towards their own development as successful bilinguals. Translanguaging practices such as code-switching and translation occurred when there was a need to scaffold their own teaching and students’ learning and on occasions when socializing with students. There were a few lecturers in this study having demonstrated advanced capabilities in both languages. They enacted a positive view of multilingualism and translanguaging practice, and comfortably and confidently moved and integrated both Chinee and English in teaching. I would argue that they had developed a translanguaging identity as they reside in the space where two intertwined languages and knowledge systems contribute to their sense of self. In contrast, the majority of the group were observed to have instructional English at an unequal proficiency level to their L1. They enacted more explicit transfer and translanguaging episodes arguably as a ‘survival’ strategy to assist with the flow of the lectures. These lecturers evidenced a view of monolingualism, with data in this research confirming they aspired to improve their English to native-like status. They did not feel a sense of pride or dignity in their L1 influence and translanguaging was not their preferred option. This group is yet to develop and then demonstrate a bilingual or translanguaging identity.

8.3 A Proposed Constructivist EMI Teaching Framework

Referring back to my ongoing training work again, for over ten iterations and for a number of universities in Asia I have provided facilitation on their EMI programs. Being a teacher-researcher, I find my teaching and research go hand in hand, and it is difficult to distinguish which informed which. Based on this contention, I believe it is worth sharing a framework developed out of the insights from this research and from the years of my EMI training experience. Labeled the Constructivist EMI Teaching Framework, it provides the principles of an overarching instructional design, a five-step teaching and learning cycle, EMI teaching and learning strategies, and language skills to enact the strategies (Table 8.1). This Framework is offered with a hope that it can be a working model for consideration by other EMI training facilitators. It is not offered as an ‘ideal’ framework suitable for all contexts and educational systems, all disciplines and all ages and levels of students being taught through EMI. It is still being trialled as further EMI training workshops are undertaken. It is being proposed as a starting point for those who aspire to a student-centered, constructivist pedagogy when delivering courses through EMI.

Table 8.1 Constructivist EMI teaching framework
Full size table

The rich data from research can inform teaching, and whilst teaching is not research it can be insightful for research and the teaching of others.

Constructivist EMI teaching foregrounds the need for lecturers and teachers to establish safe learning environments and harmonious teacher-student relationships. Within this context new learning is introduced as real world problem-solving tasks, and the learning occurs through the lecturer and learners’ engagements in co-construction. Further, learning activities are designed for students to work in teams and to have opportunities for the application of knowledge in real world situations. In addition, constructivist EMI teaching allows the lecturer to create opportunities for students to present what they have learned, and the lecturer ensures that students’ achievements are progressively monitored. Lastly, constructivist EMI teaching emphasizes objective and outcome-oriented feedback and assessment of students’ learning. There is an emphasis on continuous improvement rather than scoring and ranking.

Under constructivist instruction, the teaching and learning cycle contains five equally important steps. The first step is engaging the students towards being emotionally, cognitively and/or behaviorally prepared for learning. Engagement can occur throughout the teaching and learning cycle, however the introduction and conclusion of a lesson can be targeted for developing emotional engagement. Creating an harmonious learning environment, to make students feel safe, comfortable and inclusive is very important in EMI contexts where the students learn an academic subject in a second language (English). Cognitively engaging students before the new learning is also essential. It can be through linking to their prior knowledge by including brief activities such as polls, surveys, quizzes, or direct questions. The intention is to stimulate the students into active thinking in preparedness for the new knowledge.

The second step of the cycle is knowledge building. As new knowledge is presented this step has the potential to be the most challenging in the teaching and learning cycle for students’ cognition. The new learning needs to be connected to prior knowledge, therefore, linking to what the students have learned or know is a priority. The knowledge building step mostly involves the lecturer’s information presentation thus it is useful for lecturers to become familiar with presentation modes. For example, the presentation can be multimodal through multimedia facilitation such as videos, PowerPoint slides and/or graphic organisers. For an explanation, the procedure of ‘how’ and ‘why’ with staging language can be followed; for a demonstration, the use of examples can be considered, and to engage deductive or inductive learning processes, the lecturer may consider making full use of conjunctions to make the logical relationship explicit. When questioning is implemented to scaffold learning, lecturers may find Bloom’s LOT (Lower Order Thinking) and HOT (Higher Order Thinking) (Bloom, 1984) questioning techniques beneficial. Engaging students by starting a challenging HOT question may result in students becoming discouraged particularly as they are required to respond in English.

The third step of the cycle is knowledge transfer. Proceeding from new knowledge acquisition, the lecturer’s task is then to design activities for students to internalize the learning through applying the learned knowledge in practice and solving real world problems. The activities can be designed in various forms – in class or after class for students to complete individually or in a team. For group activities ensuring each individual student contributes to the teamwork is paramount. The activities need to be varied and chosen to best achieve the expected learning outcomes. Some possibilities are role play, jigsaw, debate carousal, application, and experiment. Instructions for students to undertake the designed activity needs to be clear with step-by-step details if the activity is complex. A blurry or brief set of instructions may lead students to a disoriented state impacting on the quality of the knowledge transfer.

The fourth step is students’ presentations. During this stage the lecturer organizes students to ‘showcase’ what they have learned through team or individual presentations. The presentations can be delivered through various modes such as speeches, posters, demonstrations, or written reports of an experiment, and can be assisted by multimedia. The lecturer should stipulate the precise requirement for the presentation, scheduling and facilitating the presentations by assisting students to monitor their pacing and allocated time. Creating a psychologically safe presentation environment should also be considered when students are required to make orations in EMI contexts. For example, will the presenter be encouraged to use English-only or bilingual resources when and if necessary?

The concluding step of the teaching and learning cycle is assessing the learning. Informal assessment in the form of oral or written feedback is the last but an important step. Feedback helps students clarify their performance or achievement and directs their future learning. It thus should be objective- and outcome-oriented. This differs from the formal assessment at the end of a semester when grading and ranking students may be necessary for institutional requirements. For constructive feedback, the lecturer may consider focusing on the performance itself instead of judging the person, focusing on the content instead of the accuracy of their English. To improve participation of the class as a whole, during presentations, peer students can be assigned an active role to ensure the presenter and the audience are both engaged. In EMI classes, the students can be vulnerable as their presentation may be negatively impacted by their English proficiency. It is especially central that the lecturer shows encouragement and makes sure students’ work will not be downgraded due to their English capabilities.

Pragmatic language strategies and translanguaging practice can be two tools in constructivist EMI teaching. EMI lecturers can temporarily disregard their English proficiency and accuracy issues and counter with a focus on the use of pragmatic strategies. Effective use of pragmatic markers (PMs) can ensure teaching instructions are more clear to support students’ comprehension. PMs consist of various kinds of signposts such as those signalling a topic change, emphasizing or categorizing the content, and re/directing the logical relationships between the content being presented. These can be implemented to guide students to logically capture the direction, the transition, the sequence and the comparison in the instruction. This strategy has the potential to contest the limitation created by ‘imperfect’ English. In addition, translanguaging practice can be purposefully designed into the cycle to facilitate teaching and learning. This is especially realizable in a class where the same L1 is shared. In a post-monolingual world, languages not only cross borders and co-exist, they seep, ooze, and blend into one another through people’s cognition about and presentations of knowledge. The magnitude of this concept is that it permits EMI educators, from a pedagogical perspective, to address and achieve educational equality, equity and inclusiveness, and to champion the accessibility of subject knowledge for all.

8.4 A Brief Epilogue

In closing, it is contended that there is a vital need for researchers to collect rich evidence-based data from ‘real’ EMI classes in operation, from across a variety of universities in the Expanding Circle, the Outer Circle, even the Inner Circle countries. Currently, there is an imbalance between research into EMI and research about EMI; there is an imbalance between research reliant on data grounded in opinionated problems and the research which has identified actual challenges; there is an imbalance between the quantity of research into EMI language issues and the research relating to teaching and pedagogical issues, and there is an imbalance between the generation of research knowledge derived from participants-only and that based on the co-construction of knowledge involving both participants and the researcher.

This research focused on one specific set of phenomena from one generic group of participants in one educational context and captured some of the particulars and describable features of EMI teaching in this context. It has its limitations, but the aim of this book is to disrupt the current paradigms in EMI research, to contribute to a greater understanding of EMI teaching, and to inspire new research from a more critical perspective.