ENGLISH-MEDIATED INSTRUCTION @ EUH

As part of recent internationalization policies and rhetoric, Japanese universities have been increasing English-medium-instruction (EMI) courses. Yet there is little guidance regarding curriculum and instruction for faculty and students whose first language is not English, and this is exacerbated by the tendency for university teaching to be a relatively autonomous and personalized project often characterized by amateurism, autonomy, and isolation. Faculty, then, often rely on hunches and autodidacticism alone. This was the challenging situation that the four of us, the original project members, found ourselves in at a university in Japan with an ambitious policy of balanced bilingualism: one language teacher tasked with preparing students for all their EMI courses and three content teachers tasked with teaching mixed-proficiency EMI courses in science and technology studies, environmental studies, and anthropology, respectively. To engage with the situation and improve our education in the EMI settings, we are currently conducting action research drawing on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). 

• Participatory action research (PAR) cycles to design better scaffolding (temporary extra support that leads to independent capabilities) and teaching approaches: Design→ Intervene & Observe→ Reflect→ Design

  • Instructors: Participation in each other's courses as collaborative planners, observers, classroom assistants (CAs), and reflective discussion partners

  • Student classroom assistants (CAs): Participation in all stages of action research cycles

  • Course students: Participation in peer-scaffolding, responding and providing feedback to scaffolding designs, and brainstorming different forms of scaffolding

• Arts-based research informed by Brechtian theater and disability studies

  • Distancing participants and research audiences from taken-for-granted roles and situations to encourage playful curiosity and thinking about problems and alternatives

  • Making visible the abling and disabling elements of institutions