Listening Strategies in the EMI Classroom

Abstract

<p>English Medium Instruction (EMI) has become increasingly popular around the world. While some research attention has been devoted to EMI classroom interaction and identified the predominance of teacher talk, much less is known about how learners comprehend the teacher input. This paper reports on a study that takes a rarely employed learner angle in exploring the listening strategy use by students in the EMI classroom. The study recruited an EMI class of Grade 11 Biology in Hong Kong. Through lesson observations and stimulated recall interviews, students reported their strategy use when comprehending the teacher input. A taxonomy of listening strategies in EMI was constructed, indicating that students used a range of languagemediated (e.g., division of terminology strategy to decode subject-specific terminology such as 'bio-diversity') and content-mediated cognitive strategies (e.g., expansion strategy to expand on one's understanding using comparisons and examples). Findings also reveal how some students, despite having little linguistic knowledge (i.e. vocabulary and grammar), could use a combination of strategies to comprehend the teacher input. This paper ends with a discussion on pedagogical implications of the findings and professional development in EMI.<br></p>