TEACHING DISCIPLINARY KNOWLEDGE THROUGH ENGLISH AS A MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION
4. RESULTS 1. The CAT
4.4. Lecturers’ writing articles for international and domestic journals
Disseminating research and growing the knowledge base in a university is important for university management and university policy development. Scientific writing in disciplines underpins research, as the results of research are of much use if they are distributed for student and peer reference and implementation. Thus, the ability for IU lecturers to write, and to have the time to write, is important in translating their knowledge into empirical research for findings. Many academics agree that writing for publication is one of the most difficult aspects of the process of research to improve lecturers’ knowledge in teaching. All the data utilized in this study emanated from the Office of Research and Development at IU as can be seen in Tables 5A and 5B.
Table 5A. The statistics of IU lecturers’ publication from 2008 to 2017
Type of publications 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 (*) 2017 Papers in international
journals 41 46 51 67 78 108 110 132 131 125
Papers in international
journals in ISI (+ *Scopus) 35 39 41 41 51 53 74 78 73* 81
Papers in domestic journals 9 8 6 13 13 56 49 79 60 48
Papers in international
conference proceedings 25 10 35 62 52 90 86 193 164 107
Papers in domestic
conference proceedings 18 10 21 17 17 45 14 32 14 15
Other types of publications, editor for conference proceedings, author of books, or chapter(s) of a book, etc.
0 0 0 0 0 9 6 17 9 9
Total (papers) 93 74 113 159 160 308 265 453 378 304
(Report from the Office of Research & Development, IU– VNU HCMC)
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KỶ YẾU HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC QUỐC TẾ DẠY VÀ HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ GẮN VỚI CHUYÊN NGÀNH TRONG BỐI CẢNH HỘI NHẬP QUỐC TẾ: LÍ LUẬN VÀ THỰC TIỄN
Table 5B. Average percentage of publication per lecturer
Year 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Average percentage of publication per lecturer with a doctoral degree
1.5 1.1 0.9 0.9 0.9 1.3 1.2 1.4 1.4 1.2
Average percentage of ISI publication per lecturer with a doctoral degree
1.3 0.9 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8
Average percentage of
publication per lecturer at IU 1.5 1.0 1.2 1.3 1.1 2.2 1.7 2.6 2.0 1.7 (Report from the Office of Research & Development, IU– VNU HCMC)
5. DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to examine the evidence from IU CAT, student feedback as an evaluation at the end of English courses (general English and academic English), disciplinary courses, students’ graduation theses, and lecturers’ writing articles for international as well as domestic journals. In doing so, the study addressed the following questions mentioned earlier in the paper.
For the first question: “How does the application of EMI at IU affect and teaching staff and students who use English as a foreign language in teaching and learning disciplinary knowledge?”, it was answered with the results of IU CAT from Tables 2A and 2B in the math test (earning from 5 to 10 points: 96.85% and 98.28 % in 2016 and 2017, respectively) and in taking the English test (earning from 5 to 10 points: 72.96%
and 95.89 % in 2016 and 2017, respectively), which can pave the good way for EMI development at IU. It is possible that students have met the requirement of IU CAT since IU CAT has been designed and administered in such a way that can improve students’
ability in taking the tests. Moreover, the effective application of EMI at IU is supported by the English programs: general English, and academic English as displayed in Table 6.
Table 6. IU English Language Pathway
STAGE 1 STAGE 2
SEMESTER 1 SEMESTER 2 SEMESTER 3 SEMESTER 4
Levels IE1 IE2 AE1 AE2
Skills focused
- Integrated Reading
& Writing
- Integrated Listening
& Speaking
- Integrated Reading
& Writing
- Integrated Listening
& Speaking
- Listening & Note-taking
- Academic writing 1
-Effective presentations - Academic writing 2 Entry
score
range < 35 > = 35
Completing IE 1
> = 61 Completing IE 2
Completing AE1
Intensive English Academic English
Intensive English (IE) focusing on TOEFL iBT test-taking strategies. The IE Program, including IE1 and IE2, equips students with the English competence to pursue their majors taught entirely in English. The program also includes the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) to facilitate students’ learning in their major programs. Academic English (AE) focuses on academic study skills. The AE Program, including AE1 and AE2, is for students who have completed IE2. This program provides comprehensive instruction and practice in academic writing (essays and thesis development), listening and note-taking, and presentations. The application of the language programs at IU (Table 6) and the survey from the evaluation at individual level and institutional level has proved that the successful implementation of EMI at IU.
For the second research question: “Do lecturers receive enough training and professional development to help them in teaching their content subjects through EMI?”, the survey data from the evaluation showed in Table 3 that the scores to evaluate lecturers ranged from 4.19 to 4.44 at the individual level and maintained 4.32 at the institutional level. Moreover, IU has established a writing center modelled after that in the US universities, where students and lecturers (who have the need to have their papers revised before submitting them to journals for publication). The writing center provides the revision to research papers (lectures’ articles and students’ graduation theses at undergraduate and graduate levels) regarding research format and language use. The main function of the writing center is to support IU students who want to improve their English writing skills. Students meet one-on-one with the tutors on a weekly basis at the students’ convenience and receive feedback on writing issues that need improvement.
For the third question: “What are the beliefs of lecturers and students to EMI?”, The data from the report of the Office of Research and Development can be seen in Tables 4A and 4B, where 679 students’ graduation theses were assessed as excellent (0.15), very good (13.25%), good (58.76), fair (2.95), and above average (24.89%) in 2016; and 612 students’
graduation theses were assessed as excellent (0.49%), very good (20.92%), good (15.52%), fair (38.56%) and above average (24.51%) in 2017. The beliefs of lecturers and students to EMI were also consolidated with the positive results presented in Tables 5A and 5B, where the average percentage of publication per lecturer at IU ranged from 1.5 to 1.7 for the years 2008 to 2017. There has been an increasing pressure on individuals to publish their works from IU perspective to increase the number of publications to attract more students to come to the university. At IU, research papers published in international journals (in ISI or Scopus) are important to illustrate the nature of research being undertaken and the development of a particular field or area of expertise. This usually brings prestige to the university. Publication is also of great importance to individuals for career advancement.
In order to write papers, both the knowledge of lecturers’ subjects and the ability of using English to write are required, thus consolidating the application of EMI.
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KỶ YẾU HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC QUỐC TẾ DẠY VÀ HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ GẮN VỚI CHUYÊN NGÀNH TRONG BỐI CẢNH HỘI NHẬP QUỐC TẾ: LÍ LUẬN VÀ THỰC TIỄN
In other words, the development of EMI courses and programs at IU is successful due to the following issues that have been taken in consideration.
1. EMI is somehow a good thing which has been implemented as widely as possible at IU, with consideration for the situation on the ground regarding key issues such as the relative language proficiency of lecturers and students, the availability of adequate and appropriate materials and the overall feasibility of the policies being implemented with stakeholders consulted about the top-down policies.
2. In many cases, it is clear that lecturers and students do not have the levels of proficiency in English to teach and learn content subjects in English. However, the appropriate application of EMI can lead to the successful implementation of a teaching method as lecturers and students alike have the good background knowledge when students enter the university through IU CAT.
3. The lecturers who have received any training/professional development can prepare themselves for teaching their content subjects through English though it takes time to have a systematic training or development of staff to combine language proficiency and content knowledge offered. In this case, IU is a typical example.
The application of EMI at IU has limited the use of mother tongue and put English in place. However, to be good at English does not mean “to be English” (Pillai, 2018). IU policy recognizes and encourages the use of the linguistic resources of both lecturers and students in teaching and learning disciplinary knowledge through English as a medium of instruction.
6. CONCLUSION
The increase in EMI courses and programs is inevitable but the implementation of these courses and programs still needs to be done if the EMI policies are to be carried out successfully. Language education policies need to be developed at the national level as IU was established according to the Prime Minister’s decision. These policies need to be coherent and consistent at three levels: macro-, meso-, and micro- that involve the university itself and stakeholders in language development. The issue is that how it can be sure that the levels of English proficiency of both lecturers and students are qualified enough to be able to handle the teaching and learning of content subjects through EMI.
If lecturers and students can use their linguistic resources in teaching and learning tasks through EMI, the use of native languages other than English is less in order to help students learn more knowledge through English in a similarly native environment or help to prepare them for any possible future study abroad as in the case of IU. Therefore, it can be ensured that if teaching staff and students receive adequate training and development both in English itself and disciplinary knowledge, the teaching of content subjects
through English will be very successful. However, the interference of mother tongue still sometimes happens. This does not mean that “Englishisation” will be the target, but the use of English as an academic lingua franca is well received. It is essential that the use of English as a lingua franca is acknowledged and supported in all settings. It is hopeful that future research will deal with the issue that the implementation of EMI which can be successful from the macro-level to micro-level will lead to “Englishisation”.
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