English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI)

Module 3: Task 1 – 5 Video Lectures

Video 3.1: Vocabulary and EMI Courses

Welcome to this video on Vocabulary and EMI Courses. I’m Dawn Bikowski at Ohio University.

Let’s start with a couple of quotes from EMI instructors and researchers, to get us started thinking about
this important topic. Here is our first one: “Vocabulary explanations should be explored not only as a
mode of vocabulary instruction, but also as an integral part of EMI pedagogy” [on screen: (Moriyasu,
2017, p. 34)]. I like this quote, because it points out how important vocabulary is to ensuring that
students understand the content you are trying to teach them. Teaching in EMI requires us to think
about how much or how little students understand the words we use in our lectures, the words they
read in their English materials, or the words their classmates or professionals use in discussions. EMI
instructors are not language teachers and will not spend all of class teaching key terms, but you all will
have to become aware of the words you use and how to help students understand EMI content using
the most clear words possible. And of course, this will depend on your student population.

And that relates to the second quote I want to share. It’s a bit longer: “In the case of EMI, … where
teachers often avoid directly language-centered instruction, vocabulary explanations may become a vital
tool for success” (Moriyasu, 2017, p. 34). This sums it up nicely—helping students with the vocabulary
they need will be crucial if you want them to succeed in your EMI course. For many students, vocabulary
is the hardest part of studying in English.

So let’s look at what it means to “know” a word. To be able to learn new content using a word, students
need to be able to:

• recognize it when they read it, meaning spelling is important.

• recognize it when they hear it, meaning sounds and the pronunciation or accent variety of the
speaker are important.
• use it correctly when they communicate in speaking, meaning pronunciation, grammar, and
usage are important.
• use it in writing, meaning grammar, spelling, and usage are important.

For the purposes of an EMI course, you won’t be able to realistically help students completely
understand every word you use, but remember that a student might recognize a word in writing when
they read it, but not know how that English word is pronounced and therefore not recognize it when
you say it during a lecture or when a peer uses it during a discussion. Or, a different student might be
stronger in their listening/speaking skills and might not recognize a word when they read it, but

© 2019 by Ohio University. Video 3.1 Vocabulary and EMI Courses for the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S.
Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. government and administered by FHI 360. This work is licensed under the
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understand perfectly during a lecture. For this reason, giving students different ways to interact with
and understand words is important. That comes back to awareness—being aware of how students
might struggle with words in your EMI course is very important. In fact, research has shown that more
experienced teachers develop a type of intuition for when students might not know a word, and they
stop and explain or define it as necessary [on screen: (Moriyasu, 2017)]. You can think about developing
that intuition in your own class.

At this point, you might be wondering how many words a student needs to know in some capacity in
order to succeed and learn in an EMI course. Studies have shown that for listening to a lecture, students
need to know and understand 95-98 percent of the words they hear (Hu & Nation, 2000; Nation &
Newton, 2008). That’s a lot of words. But remember that students can’t just memorize long lists of
words in a short time. You can set a goal of introducing or reviewing maybe 25 words per week,
depending on your students’ needs.

That sums up some information we can use to get started as we are thinking about vocabulary within
your EMI course.

References1

Hu, H., & Nation, I. S. P. (2000). Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension. Reading in a
Foreign Language, 13(1), 403-430.

Moriyasu, M. (2017). Explaining words: How EMI teachers conceptualize and deliver explanations of
unfamiliar vocabulary. Oxford Educational Cloud, 1(1), 31-44.

Nation, I. S. P., & Newton, J. (2008). Teaching ESL/EFL listening and speaking. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

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