Frequency and framing: Emphasizing key concepts in English medium instruction

Abstract

English medium instruction (EMI) courses can present challenges for both teachers and students, particularly because at least one side of the teaching-learning equation is operating in English as a second or additional language (Håkansson & Svensson, 2024). Previous research has documented challenges that students in EMI courses face with regards to lecture and listening comprehension (e.g., Ducker, 2022). Less attention, however, has been given to the teacher’s planning and delivery of lecture content, especially their spoken output.

This study focused on two EMI lectures from a Swedish university in relation to the key concepts the lecturers intended for student learning. In pre-lecture discussions with the researcher, lecturers indicated sets of key information they expected the students to attend to and learn during the lectures, which were recorded. The two lectures in focus were selected based on previous analysis of post-lecture student reports (Siegel, 2022), which indicated the teachers were either relatively successful at communicating key concepts to students (53%, based on student recognition of key words) or struggled to do so (16% key word reporting).

The lecture transcripts were then scrutinized in terms of key word frequency (Dang, et al., 2023; Puimége 2019) and in relation to Sinclair and Coulthard’s (1975) framework for understanding classroom discourse and speaker output, which allowed patterns of lecturer discourse to be identified and compared. To understand the teachers’ spoken strategies, lecture transcripts were analyzed in terms of the following:

1. (How) does word frequency differ between the two lectures?
2. How is key information framed in the two lectures?

Results related to frequency show that repetition and paraphrasing of key words and concepts occurred more often in the lecture in which students were more likely to acknowledge them. The majority of key words were framed as “informatives” and “comments”, generally adhering to expectations, since these are two of the main possible pragmatic functions speakers use to deliver and expand on new information. Practical advice for EMI lecturers in relation to spoken output is offered based on this investigation of isolated words embedded in academic discourse.