Description
English-medium instruction (EMI) has expanded rapidly in recent years. A number of factors are responsible for the increased popularity of EMI, and one of these is the expectation that EMI contexts provide the opportunity for incidental language acquisition. In other words, it is often assumed that when subject content is studied through the medium of English, students learn the subject content and also improve their English skills into the bargain. The choice to implement EMI then can be assessed as a function of a cost-benefit equation: to what extent does it yield the expected language-learning outcomes, and are there any costs offsetting the potential gains? In this talk I’ll present the preliminary findings of the PROFiLE project, a three-year longitudinal study of the language-learning outcomes of EMI in Swedish universities. The findings suggest that expectations of EMI are not always realistic, and that successful outcomes are more likely if certain preconditions obtain. Pedagogical implications will be discussed.| Period | 7 Apr 2017 |
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| Held at | Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China |
| Degree of Recognition | Local |