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Article published In: Emerging Assessment Needs and Solutions in EMI in Higher Education
Edited by Slobodanka Dimova and Joyce Kling
[Journal of English-Medium Instruction 1:2] 2022
► pp. 232–254

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An EMI lecturer’s assessment practices with engineering laboratory reports

ORCiD logo with link | University of Lleida
ORCiD logo with link | University of Vic
ORCiD logo with link | Polytechnic University of Catalonia
Published online: 25 August 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jemi.21008.man
Abstract
EMI assessment research designed to compare academic achievement in EMI and L1-medium courses aims to examine language and content learning outcomes (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, 441, 57–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Hernández-Nanclares, N., & Jiménez-Munoz, A. (2015). English as a medium of instruction: Evidence for language and content targets in bilingual education in economics. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 20(7), 883–896. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Yang, W. (2015). Content and language integrated learning next in Asia: evidence of learners’ achievement in CLIL education from a Taiwan tertiary degree programme. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(4), 361–382. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). However, these studies provide little insight into learning processes. A genre analysis perspective, in contrast, can offer a deeper understanding of the development of student disciplinary literacy. Based on genre analysis studies on student writing (Nesi, H., & Gardner, S. (2012). Genres across the disciplines. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Parkinson, J. (2017). The student laboratory report genre: A genre analysis. English for Specific Purposes, 451, 1–13. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), we aim to describe the written genre in student laboratory reports from an EMI course on a Mechanical Engineering degree programme. Seven students’ laboratory reports as well as the lecturer’s instructions, the assessment rubric, and written feedback were examined using genre analysis. This case study contributes to the emerging literature on assessment in EMI by foregrounding the advantages of genre analysis as an analytical methodology and shedding light on students’ development of literacy in disciplinary writing.
Resum
La recerca sobre l’avaluació en els contexts de docència en anglès (conegut com EMI, English-Medium Instruction, en anglès) dissenyada per comparar el rendiment acadèmic en EMI i en les assignatures impartides en la L1 té com a objectiu examinar els resultats d’aprenentatge de llengua anglesa i de contingut (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, 441, 57–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Hernández-Nanclares, N., & Jiménez-Munoz, A. (2015). English as a medium of instruction: Evidence for language and content targets in bilingual education in economics. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 20(7), 883–896. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Yang, W. (2015). Content and language integrated learning next in Asia: evidence of learners’ achievement in CLIL education from a Taiwan tertiary degree programme. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(4), 361–382. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Tanmateix, aquests estudis ofereixen poca informació sobre els processos d’aprenentatge. En canvi, una perspectiva des de l’anàlisi de gènere pot oferir uns coneixements més profunds del desenvolupament de la literacitat disciplinària dels estudiants. Basant-nos en estudis d’anàlisi de gènere sobre l’escriptura dels estudiants (Nesi, H., & Gardner, S. (2012). Genres across the disciplines. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Parkinson, J. (2017). The student laboratory report genre: A genre analysis. English for Specific Purposes, 451, 1–13. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), pretenem descriure el gènere escrit en els informes de laboratori d’estudiants d’una assignatura d’EMI d’un grau en Enginyeria Mecànica. Es varen examinar set informes de laboratori escrits per estudiants, així com les instruccions del professorat, la rúbrica d’avaluació i el feedback escrit mitjançant l’anàlisi de gènere. Aquest estudi de cas contribueix a la literatura emergent sobre avaluació en EMI posant de manifest els avantages de l’anàlisi de gènere com a metodologia analítica i proporcionant informació sobre el desenvolupament de la literacitat en l’escriptura disciplinària dels estudiants.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Background
    • Studies in EMI assessment
    • Disciplinary literacy and genre
  • Methodology
    • The context and data collection process
    • Data analysis
  • Findings
    • The educational purpose of the laboratory practical
    • Analysis of the IMRD macro-structure
    • Analysis of moves and steps
    • Analysis of verb tense
    • Analysis of written feedback
  • Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
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