As Ernesto Macaro laid out in his 2018 book titled English Medium Instruction, the acronym EMI has taken on different meanings around the world. EMI has been said to stand for, among other things, English-medium instruction English as the medium of instruction English as a medium of instruction In terms of English language use, the…
A Response to “Bilingual Policy Deserves Support”
On June 2, 2022, the Taipei Times published an article titled “Bilingual Policy Deserves Support” by Peter Whittle. From the onset, I think it is important for me to explicitly state that I support bilingual education. I think that idea may get lost in some of my criticism of policy in this blog and my…
“English was to a large extent only the teacher’s language”
The quote in the title comes from a research paper by Eva Codó titled “The Dilemmas of Experimental [Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)] in Catalonia.” In the paper, the author describes her observations of a teacher named Jordi. It was observed that Jordi rarely required students to use English and, accordingly, students rarely did….
The Problem with Points and Averaged Grades
Recently, I have been getting into the blog Grading for Growth. The blog is about alternative grading, which I believe can be incredibly useful in bilingual education. In short (though I suggest you read the blog), alternative grading focuses on feedback over grades. For bilingual students battling numerous challenges when learning through a non-dominant language,…