Defining language goals in EMI: vocabulary demand in a high-stakes assessment in Hong Kong

Defining language goals in EMI: vocabulary demand in a high-stakes assessment in Hong Kong

• Fung, King Tat Daniel The Education University of Hong Kong
• Chung, Edsoulla Hong Kong Metropolitan University

Language and Education, 2023

Routledge

2023

• G Curriculum, Teaching & Learning: Specific Disciplines
  • GB English Language
    • GBD Teaching Methods of Reading Comprehension & Their Outcomes, Vocabulary Teaching

English Medium Instruction Assessment Vocabulary CLIL L2 English Learners Subject-specific Language

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Unknown or Unspecified

Despite the rapid growth of English Medium Instruction (EMI) programmes around the globe, the language goals in such programmes have not been clearly defined, making it difficult to evaluate their success. Accordingly, our paper reports on a study that attempted to identify the language goals, operationalised as the vocabulary expected of learners, by investigating the under-explored area of EMI assessment. We sampled a corpus of 16 sets of examination papers in two subject areas, namely, Biology and Geography, spanning eight years in Hong Kong. The examination papers, analysed for their vocabulary profiles, indicated that students were expected to learn beyond the K3 level (the most frequent 3,000 words in English) and master mid-frequency words (K4−K8) as well as academic words. Our findings suggest that the less frequent words were not often shared by the two subjects. Analysing academic words also enabled us to showcase how some words were common across the two subjects while others were more subject-specific. Pedagogical implications are discussed, highlighting the need for teachers and students to attend to target language goals in EMI, and to consider the subject-specific nature of vocabulary items in EMI. Copyright © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

• English

Journal Articles

• 09500782

• 10.1080/09500782.2023.2219654

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/en/bibs/c02ab4d8

2023-09-19