Page 10 - ELG1709 Agu-Sep Issue 450

RESEARCH NEWS .

EMI ‘doesn’t

work’ for

adults with

weak second

language skills

Teach an adult a foreign language and
content simultaneously, and they’ll learn
very little in either, research suggests Learning the hard way

By Claudia Civinni In all three experiments, which
Teaching academic content involved a total of 294 French Just like Clil at primary and secondary level, EMI
in a foreign language without university students, participants is gaining ground in higher education around the
explicit language support can be were divided into three groups. world (see page 16/17).Although Clil has more focus
detrimental to the learning of A text about a topic relevant to on pedagogical support in the foreign language, both
both the subject and the foreign the students’ course was given methodologies aim to teach content and language
tongue, researchers have said. to the first group in the foreign simultaneously. This approach doesn’t seem to tally
Practices such as English as language, to the second group in with the findings of this study, and with cognitive load theory
a medium of instruction (EMI) French, and to the third in both in general. ‘The idea that we have a limited pool of resources
could be ineffective compared to the foreign language and French. [see main piece] is common knowledge,’ said Dr Sweller. ‘It’s
learning language and content The foreign language was German incomprehensible that there is such a divide between research and
separately unless students have for the three groups in the first practice.’ But the divide is not only between research and practice,
already mastered their foreign experiment and English for the but also between research and policy, the authors said. ‘There
language or receive targeted three groups of the other two is a lot of politics around internationalisation. Much of these
support, a new study warns. experiments. The students, who procedures [such as EMI] have been brought in without any prior
‘It’s safe to say that EMI doesn’t averaged a CEFR B1 in the foreign research whatsoever,’ Dr Sweller said. And research is still lacking,
work, from the data we got,’ Dr language, were then asked to study with very few randomised control trials, he added.
John Sweller, one of the authors the texts and to perform three For Dr Stephanie Roussel, the lead author of this study, there
of the study, told the Gazette. ‘If tests afterwards: two language and should also be a cultural perspective on the issue. ‘EMI and Clil
you try to teach adults a second translation tests and one content seem to work well in countries such as Canada and Belgium,
language simultaneously with test with questions in French. which are bilingual,’ she explained. ‘Maybe implementing such
content, they’ll end up with very Unsurprisingly, the French-only an approach in a different cultural context, such as broadly
little learning in either.’ conditions yielded the best results monolingual France, won’t yield the same results without strong
The authors explain that for the content test. However, second language support.’
learning a foreign language as an results were higher in the language
adult means acquiring ‘biologically and translation tests for students
secondary knowledge’, which who read the text in both language. Until then, according the content.’
requires explicit instruction and languages. The full ‘immersion’ to everything we know about Universities should put in place
‘conscious effort’. Cognitive load conditions obtained the worst human cognition, you are going extra support to ensure students
theory, the study says, suggests results in all three experiments. to struggle – both in the language don’t struggle with lessons
that learning two things at the Language proficiency is and in the content.’ delivered in English, the authors
same time won’t work – and the paramount for EMI to lead to The idea is that we have a say. Co-author Dr Danielle Joulia
data seems to confirm this. successful learning, the authors limited pool of resources for said students would benefit from
Over three experiments, said. learning, and the brain struggles targeted language support that
each with control conditions, Dr Sweller explained, ‘Ideally, to learn two things at the same covers the vocabulary of the topic
researchers found that reading a you should not learn content in time for this reason. Co-author they are studying, ideally before
text only in the foreign language the L2 until your language levels Dr Andre Tricot added, ‘All the each class. ‘General academic
led to the worst outcomes for both are so high that you don’t have resources you use to deal with the English support is not enough,’ she
content and language learning. to consciously think about the language are unavailable to learn insisted.
10 August/September2017

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