Korean engineering students’ and faculty’s attitudes toward English-medium instruction (EMI) classes

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate Korean engineering students’ and professor’s attitudes toward EMI. Students enrolled in liberal arts courses in the fall of 2012 and in the spring of 2014 and the courses’ instructors at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) were chosen for the study. English tests were given to measure students’ English abilities. Questionnaire and interview surveys were conducted on the students’ and instructor’s opinions and attitudes towards EMI classes. The results show that the students’ grades showed a high correlation with their English test scores. The majority of the students believed that the school should continue offering EMI classes although they showed lower levels of satisfaction about EMI classes than about Korean-medium instruction (KMI) classes. The instructors also believed that EMI classes must continue to be offered in order to strengthen students’ global competitiveness although they believed that EMI classes had little positive effect on students’ learning. The study results prove the arguments by Johnson and Swain (1994), Burger, Wesche, and Migneron (1997) and Marsh, Hau, and Kong (2000) that language proficiency is crucial for successful late immersion classes and that when students are placed in EMI classes without consideration of English proficiency, their satisfaction levels are low. Moreover, the students’ and instructor’s contradictory attitudes may be explained by the long-standing dominant status of English, or English linguistic imperialism, in Korean society.