Input in EMI: Trusting the Process and the Journey

ABSTRACT

Just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was argued that studies of EMI university lectures had mostly addressed face-to-face settings and that more research needed to be done on EMI in online settings. At the start of the pandemic, universities all over the world scrambled to deliver teaching using digital technologies, offering a range of synchronous and asynchronous solutions. This article focuses on input in online EMI teaching during the pandemic and aims to identify and describe its salient features. The research uses mixed methods to investigate this topic, triangulating data from questionnaires sent out to lecturers, recordings of video lectures, and interviews with lecturers. The interviews use stimulated recall, or retrospective interview, in which respondents verbalise their thoughts about a task after carrying it out. The lectures were of the synchronous videoconferencing lecture variety, in which instruction occurs in real time. The study has implications for online EMI teaching well beyond the pandemic, given that blended learning models are increasingly adopted in higher education and EMI lecturers are concerned with how to make their lecturing more effective. The shift online has disrupted the kinds of face-to-face input ensembles that are possible, but led to the establishment of others. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Francesca Costa and Cristina Mariotti;individual chapters, the contributors.