For several years now, I have been teaching on a university pre-masters programme. in a business school.
I have described some aspects of the programme here:
The programme consists of several modules and I have been involved with several of them over the last 5 or 6 years. One module that I have spent a large amount of time on is “Introduction to accounting”. It was team-taught with an accounting lecturer and me. We worked very closely together and mainly used the same materials. The accounting lecturer concentrated on the accounting content and I focussed on the language content. I have taught on this module for 5 or 6 years – sometimes twice a year – and as time passed, I have slowly come to the conclusion that it was not really possible to separate the accounting content from the language. We described the course as a CLIL course as the business subjects we were teaching and the language was well integrated and the aim of the course was to develop both. However, as they are taught by different people, does that mean it should be described as an EMI course rather than a CLIL course or even CBI? It does not really matter what we call the course, but it is interesting to look into the distinction in more detail.
What is the difference?
EMI is about teaching non-language subjects through the medium of English..
As Macaro (2018) defines it, EMI is
The use of English language to teach academic subjects (other than English itself) in countries or jurisdictions: where the first language of the majority of the population is not English.
It is usually understood to exist in “non-Anglophone countries”. So, as I teach students on our pre-master’s programme in the UK, this would not usually be considered to be EMI as it is in UK.
It is also clear that in EMI the language is not explicitly taught and in our case the language is explicitly taught – by me
So, if it is not EMI, is it CLIL?
For CLI,
CLIL is a dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language (Mehisto, Marsh, & Frigols, 2008, p. 9).
…any type of pedagogical approach that integrates the teaching and learning of content and second/foreign languages (Morton & Llinares, 2017, p. 1).
Many aspects of CLIL are involved in our teaching. The business content and the language are integrated. Content from the business subjects is used in the language- classes. The English teacher, working together with the teachers of the business subjects, incorporates the vocabulary, terminology and texts from those other subjects into his or her classes. Students learn the language, discourse patterns and genres they need to understand and use the content.
And CBI:
In this volume, we define Content-Based Instruction as the integration of particular content with language-teaching aims (Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 1989, .p. 2).
Similarly, CBI assumes that language is learned most effectively using content of interest and relevance to the learner. However, the main aim of CBI is to teach the language through the – in our case – business content.
Another point, though, made by Lasagabaster & Sierra (2010) is that CLIL is normally taught in contexts where the language used in teaching is not spoken locally. Furthermore, the teachers are not usually native speakers of the language they are using. This was not true in our case.
So in our case, is what we are doing CLIL? Or do we continue to refer to it as team-teaching (British Council, 1980; Dudley-Evans, .2001).
What about EMI?
As Macaro (2018) defines it, EMI is
The use of English language to teach academic subjects (other than English itself) in countries or jurisdictions: where the first language of the majority of the population is not English.
Another definition by Kling (2019, p. 2) is:
While there is a great deal of debate as to a specific definition, English as a medium of instruction (EMI) typically refers to the use of English as the language of teaching and learning for academic content courses (e.g., chemistry, biochemistry, sociology, political science) in contexts where English is not the natural or standard language of instruction (Dafouz & Camacho-Miñano, 2016; Henriksen, Holmen, & Kling, 2019). In most cases, the learning outcomes for EMI courses focus on disciplinary competences; the language itself is not being explicitly taught.
So it only exists in “non-Anglophone countries”, does it?. I teach the course in the UK. There are no home students in the class. I do not know if there are native speakers in the class, but there are several Nigerians and Kenyans. There are also many from the Indian subcontinent and many from Asia. So this would not be considered to be EMI as it is in UK. I’m not sure how different it is, though.
It is also clear that in EMI, the language is not explicitly taught. This again separates it from our course, which involves explicit teaching of the language. This distinguishes EMI from language teaching approaches such as CLIL and CBI.
Interestingly, as well as working with the accounting lecture, I also worked with the research methods lecturer in a similar way – sharing materials etc. However, after a year or two, the research methods lecturer – who was a marketing lecturer – moved on to other things. As there was nobody else available to deal with the research methods content, I finished up doing it. And this soon led to me teaching the whole research methods module on the MSc internal business programme. How would we describe this? Although the main purpose of the module was to teach research methods, I always thought of it as a kind of CLIL as it was clear to me that I needed also to focus explicitly on language!
Whatever we call our courses, there are two main reasons for our choice of teaching method. The first is linguistic: as Hyland (2000) has made clear, disciplines differ in their uses of language. As a language teacher cannot be expected to be an expert in every discipline, a team-teaching method seems to be a good way to deal with this lack of expertise.
CLIL by its very name suggests the desirability of a close relationship between learning language and learning content (Coffin, 2017, p. 92).
Secondly, as many of the students are primarily interested in developing their business knowledge and skills rather than their language, integrating the language with the content is motivating and leads to increased learning (Brinton, Snow & Wesche, 1989; Hamilton, 2010; Nordmeyer, 2010).
Another factor related to motivation in the classroom is the sense of relevance the content holds for the learner, which is also connected to the L2 learning experience. It is important to ensure that content is of interest to students… and that it is linked to the experiences and lived realities of the students. Furthermore, … the use of authentic tasks and meaningful activities that link the content of the curriculum to real world problems has been highlighted as highly motivating. As there is real and authentic content in the various subjects taught, authenticity is intrinsic to CLIL. … CLIL can, theoretically, offer greater opportunities for real language use. (Sylvén, 2017, p. 55)
See also Coyle & Meyer (2021) for further discussion on the integration of academic subject content with language. .
References & Further Reading
Benesch, S. (Ed.). (1988). Ending remediation: Linking ESL and content in higher education. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
Brinton, D. M. & Masters, P. (Eds.). (1997). New ways in content based instruction.. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
Brinton, D. M., Snow, M. A., & Wesche, M. B. (1989). Content-based second language instruction. New York: Newbury House.
British Council (1980). Team teaching in ESP (ELT Documents 106). London: The British Council.
Coffin, C. (2017). Systemic Functional Linguistics: A theory for integrating content-language learning (CLL). In A. Llinares & T. Morton (Eds.), Applied linguistics perspectives on CLIL (pp. 91-103). London: John Benjamins.
Coyle, D., Hood, P. & Marsh, D. (2010). CLIL. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coyle, D. & Meyer, O. (2021). Beyond CLIL: Pluriliteracies teaching for deeper learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dafouz, E., & Camacho-Miñano, M. M. (2016). Exploring the impact of English-medium instruction on university student academic achievement: The case of accounting. English for Specific Purposes, 44, 57–67.
Dudley-Evans, T. (2001). Team teaching in EAP: Changes and adaptations in the Birmingham approach. In J. Flowerdew & M. Peacock (Eds.), Research perspectives on English for academic purposes (pp. 225-238). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</p?
Hamilton, E. (2010). Motivating students to develop their English literacy skills through science. In J. Nordmeyer & S. Barduhn (Eds.), Integrating language and content (pp. 231-240). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
Henriksen, B., Holmen, A., & Kling, J. (2019). English medium instruction in multilingual and multicultural universities: Academics’ voices from the Northern European context. Oxford: Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
Kling, J. (2019). TIRF language education in review: English as a medium of instruction. Monterey, CA & Baltimore, MD: TIRF & Laureate International Universities.
Lasagabaster, D, & Serra, J. M. (2009). Immersion and CLIL in English: more differences than similarities. ELT Journal, 64(4), 367-75.
Macaro, E. (2018). English medium instruction: Language and content in policy and practice. Oxford University Press.
Mehisto, P. Marsh, D. & Frigols, M. J. (2008). Uncovering CLIL: Content and language integrated learning in bilingual and multilingual education. London: Macmillan.
Morton, T. & Llinares, A. (2017). Content and language integrated learning (CLIL): Type of programme or pedagogical model? In A. Llinares & T. Morton (Eds.), Applied linguistics perspectives on CLIL (pp. 1-16). London: John Benjamins.
Nordmeyer, J. (2010). Putting content-based second language instruction in context. In J. Nordmeyer & S. Barduhn (Eds.), Integrating language and content (pp. 1-16). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
Nordmeyer, J., & Barduhn, S. (Eds.). (2010). Integrating language and content. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
Sylvén, L. K. (2017). Motivation, second language learning and CLIL. In A. Llinares & T. Morton (Eds.), Applied linguistics perspectives on CLIL (pp. 51-65). London: John Benjamins.