Recently, many universities have shifted to online teaching and learning employing synchronous teaching apps. Such practice is a logical consequence to respond to the needs of students in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic; however, not much has been known about its effects on students’ experience. Particularly, given the lack of physical presence, it is worthy to explore how online teaching and learning may influence classroom interaction, students’ willingness to communicate (WTC) in second language (L2) English, and classroom enjoyment in English Medium Instruction (EMI) higher education context. This study explores students’ views and experience in relation to these three aspects by comparing online and face-to-face classes. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were conducted with four students in an EMI taught postgraduate programme at a university in Hong Kong. These students experienced half of their courses conducted in a face-to-face mode and half in an online synchronous mode throughout an academic year. Results indicated more teacher-student interactions and heightened WTC mostly due to a lower level of anxiety. However, students reported less opportunities for peer interactions and had mixed views on classroom enjoyment. Implications are discussed in relation to how teachers can improve students’ learning experience in EMI classes conducted using online technology. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

This study explores how students in a joint process of knowledge construction through the use of multilingual and multimodal resources in groups promotes the learning of scientific concepts in the context of laboratory work. Inductive qualitative discourse analysis was conducted to examine how students’ translanguage in a group completing tasks in two Grade 10 secondary science labs (biology and chemistry) in a Hong Kong EMI secondary school and how such a joint process of knowledge construction promotes the learning of scientific concepts. Using translanguaging as a theoretical framework, the analysis shows that even though schools have imposed an English-only policy, students use their linguistic and semiotic resources to both co-construct their scientific knowledge and practise their science apprenticeship. Translanguaging plays a role in mediating the students’ understanding of science, facilitating peer work and creating an enjoyable learning environment in the lab. The result implies that translanguaging as a pedagogical tool may create a space for content subject learning in Hong Kong EMI school setting. Copyright © 2021 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

English medium instruction (EMI) is a growing phenomenon in many countries. Some researchers have investigated the difficulties and strategies students use to cope with EMI. However, the pedagogical challenges faced and strategies used by other key participants, teachers, have been surprisingly under-researched. This study utilizes questionnaire and interview data to identify the challenges and coping strategies used by secondary school EMI science teachers in Hong Kong. A number of challenges and strategies were reported. The authors argue that many of these challenges can be overcome with principles and strategies from ELT, as the 'English' in EMI is often the main issue. The most prevalent strategy reported is the use of L1. Two perspectives on L1 usage in EMI contexts are discussed. Two emergent realities are presented as possible solutions: the idealized reality and the immediate reality. Implications for teachers and suggestions for future research are provided. Copyright ©Oxford University Press.

This study examines language features that students are likely to encounter in chemistry textbooks in EMI classrooms. In consultation with teachers, the presentation of science knowledge was examined in three chemistry textbooks commonly used in Hong Kong secondary English Medium Instruction (EMI) classrooms. Student textbooks were collected from eight Grade 10-12 chemistry classrooms. Adopting a functional linguistic approach (e.g., Veel's (1997) framework of text taxonomy), analyses showed that explanation is the most common text type in the three chemistry textbooks, and the five subtypes of explanations represented in the textbooks are causal (40%), factorial (24%), sequential (15%), consequential (13%) and theoretical (8%). The distribution of these different types of explanation texts and their features were examined to reveal the kind of language that students in EMI classrooms are likely to encounter when learning chemistry. The results show that explanation texts served as a primary linguistic reservoir for EMI students to learn the language of science. The analysis of the language features of these texts could be used to inform future pedagogies aiming at making these textbooks more accessible to students learning in English and facilitating both their science learning and control of scientific English.
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