Capturing EMI teachers’ linguistic needs: a usage-based perspective

ABSTRACT

Drawing on usage-based approaches this paper addresses the challenge of capturing EMI teachers’ linguistic needs for the purposes of teacher training in international Medical Education. The focus is on EMI medical teachers in various instructional formats. Each format requires a specific linguistic repertoire resulting dynamic interactions of linguistic, didactic, and intercultural competence, which is difficult to define in linguistic modules such as syntax and lexicon. Moreover, a generic native speaker standard of language proficiency is questionable in this ELF context. Capturing the relevant EMI competence as linguistic units that can be taught in teacher training programs is therefore a challenge. The paper builds on central tenets shared by a number of usage-based approaches to propose that linguistic units of EMI competence can be conceptualized as highly specific language functions arising from a specific EMI instructional context and mapping onto suitable formulations in ELF. This conceptualization was applied in a local teacher training initiative. First, subject-specific language functions were identified through a combined analysis of the EMI instructional context and the teachers’ instructional practices. Second, the identification procedure formed a starting point for a collaborative teacher training program. Third, a policy document was drafted, taking into account institutional limitations.

Abbreviations: CDFs: Cognitive Discourse Functions; CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning; ELF: English as a lingua franca; EMI: English-Medium Instruction; IBMG: International Bachelor Medicine Groningen; PBL: Problem-Based Learning

KEYWORDS:

• English-medium instruction (EMI)
• language functions
• English as a lingua franca
• usage-based approach
• teacher training

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Hana Gustafsson is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at NTNU, Norway. Her research on Second Language Acquisition is informed by Cognitive Linguistics and dynamic usage-based approaches. She has extensive experience as an EFL teacher and teacher trainer, most recently in international Medical Education. She is interested in bridging linguistic theory and educational practice, and addressing real-life questions with societal relevance.

Notes

1 CLIL is associated with primary and secondary education, and has a dual pedagogical aim of teaching subject-specific content as well as second/foreign language. The challenge is the true integration of the two and its holistic conceptualization that could be translated into linguistic terms (Dalton-Puffer 2013).

Additional information

Funding

This work was partly supported by the Norges Forskningsråd of Norway through its Centers of Excellence funding scheme, [Project Number 223265].