Innovation in Language Learning

English-medium instruction (EMI) has become a popular teaching strategy in higher education to raise the attractiveness of programmes for foreign and domestic students. At the author’s institution, EMI is practised at the postgraduate level, with the aim of promoting the internationalisation of education and meeting the demands of global business and industry.

This action research presents the results of an explorative survey on the first-year student experience in a two-year engineering master’s programme. The programme is technical in nature but divided into two specialisations, and these are aeronautical engineering and aviation management. The whole degree programme is taught through the medium of English. The first year consists of lectures, seminars and projects at the institute, whereas the second year releases students to internships at companies and requires them to complete their masters’ theses. For this reason, the first year of the programme became the focus of interest for exploring students’ perspectives on EMI.

The first cohort of master’s students (N = 21) was surveyed by means of a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire contained ten items on content learning and ten items on language learning that had to be rated on a 5-point Likert scale (Not at all = 0; Very much = 4). Even though this is a small-scale case study, the results reveal interesting insights into the effects of EMI as perceived by postgraduate engineering students.

Keywords: English-medium instruction, English for specific purposes, engineering, content and language learning, postgraduate programme