Abstract

English-Medium Instruction (EMI) practices in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are still emerging and in need of further empirical investigation, in comparison to European countries. Existing research in the Asian context is mainly based on students’ and teachers’ perceptions and policy-related concerns. There is a remarkable lack of studies assessing students’ language and content learning outcomes through objective tests. This study specifically reports on language learning outcomes data in two EMI programs, namely Film Production and International Trade, taught by non-Chinese international teachers. Pre-post discipline-specific vocabulary and writing tests as well as pre-post grammar proficiency tests were conducted over the course of one semester and after the same number of hours of exposure. Results show that almost no progress was made as regards their general English grammar proficiency, as expected, but gains were found in productive and receptive vocabulary tasks and in the three measures of the writing task. The greatest gains emerged in the International Trade group in the vocabulary tasks and no differences were observed between the groups in the writing task. Results are discussed in relation to classroom teaching practices in the two groups, which were observed three times over the course of the semester.

摘要

与欧洲国家相比，中华人民共和国 (PRC) 的英语媒介教学 (EMI) 实践仍在出现，需要进一步的实证调查。在亚洲背景下的现有研究主要基于学生和教师的看法以及与政策相关的关注。非常缺乏通过客观测试评估学生语言和内容学习成果的研究。本研究专门报告了由非华裔国际教师教授的两个 EMI 项目的语言学习成果数据，即电影制作和国际贸易。前后学科特定的词汇和写作测试以及事前语法能力测试在一个学期的课程中进行，并且在相同的暴露小时数之后进行。结果表明，正如预期的那样，他们的一般英语语法熟练程度几乎没有取得任何进展，但在生产性和接受性词汇任务以及写作任务的三项措施方面取得了进步。国际贸易组在词汇任务中的收获最大，而在写作任务中，两组之间没有观察到差异。结果讨论了两组的课堂教学实践，在整个学期中观察了 3 次。国际贸易组在词汇任务中的收获最大，而在写作任务中，两组之间没有观察到差异。结果讨论了两组的课堂教学实践，在整个学期中观察了 3 次。国际贸易组在词汇任务中的收获最大，而在写作任务中，两组之间没有观察到差异。结果讨论了两组的课堂教学实践，在整个学期中观察了 3 次。