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FOR EDUCATORS

HOW DO I TEACH MULTILEVEL STUDENTS IN EMI COURSES?

Ideally, your university has testing and possibly interview requirements to ensure students have a CEFR B2 level of English before studying in graduate programs in English.

 

If not, or if despite tests you still find you have students of different levels, try the following:

  • Consider what skills you want your students to have in order to learn or complete tasks in your course. 

  • At the beginning of the semester, provide a diagnostic assignment — writing or speaking assignment in class that you can evaluate based on the skill criteria above.

  • Concentrate on teaching both content and skills that the majority of students need. Give higher-level students more challenging tasks separately, and plan with lower-level students additional tutoring (by you or someone else), or if need be a shift them to a different medium of instruction.

  • Give lower-level students more time to read, watch recorded lectures, and prepare class materials in advance of the class

SHOULD I USE STUDENTS’ MOTHER TONGUE IN EMI CLASSES?

  • If your program is a multilingual program with students and teachers who know and use 3 languages, development in all these languages is necessary, Using these three languages can support development.

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  • This does not mean speaking in English and repeating everything in the L1. Rather the languages can be used freely in teaching and learning (Paulsrud, Tian, & Toth, 2021). 

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  • Students need to see and feel a purpose in using multiple languages so they don’t think it’s a waste of their time

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  • You can use other languages in class, for example, to help students see connections in content and skills among languages

HOW CAN I STOP MY STUDENTS FROM PLAGIARIZING ASSIGNMENTS?

  • Make sure your university has a policy on plagiarism and enforces it.

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  • Make it clear to students: a) what plagiarism is b) why it’s a problem c) writing and speaking techniques they can use to avoid plagiarism.

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  • Ask your university for access to software (e.g. Turnitin) to help detect plagiarism

WHAT IS GENRE-BASED PEDAGOGY?

HOW CAN I USE IT TO TEACH ACADEMIC SKILLS?

  • Genre-based pedagogy goes beyond teaching grammar to teaching students to produce different types of texts for different purposes (persuading, informing), different audiences, and different structures

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  • Genre-based pedagogy also focuses on developing subject-specific knowledge, and knowledge of the process of producing different types of texts (Tardy, 2009)

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  • Genre-based pedagogy means teaching students to look at a text and understand the different parts of a text in order to produce a similar type of text

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  • As a process, genre-based pedagogy invites students to draft, review peers’ drafts and get feedback, revise, and submit to a teacher or public audience for further comment and feedback

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  • Genre-based pedagogy can use multiple languages for input and output

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  • Genre-based pedagogy is often taught by academic language course instructors in collaboration with subject teachers

WHAT RESOURCES CAN HELP ME TEACH IN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES, AND TEACH SPEAKERS OF MULTIPLE LANGUAGES?

  • Plurilingual Lab—From McGill University in Canada, a site with research and ideas for using students’ multilingual language abilities for teaching, learning, and identity formation

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