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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. 153–179

Language use in an English-medium instruction university in Lebanon

Implications for the validity of international and local English tests for admissions

ORCID logo | Lancaster University
ORCID logo | Lancaster University
ORCID logo | Lancaster University
English-medium instruction (EMI) universities in non-English-dominant contexts often use internationally available tests of English (e.g., TOEFL) and/or locally developed tests to assess the academic English-language proficiency of applicants prior to admission. However, little research has been conducted to establish the extent to which either type of test reflects the real-world classroom discourse, and associated communicative demands, within these often multilingual educational contexts. In this paper, we report on one part of a larger study designed to address this research gap in a particular EMI environment – the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon. We collected and analysed samples of language use at AUB through non-participant ethnographic observations and video recordings of eight undergraduate classes across academic disciplines. Findings indicated that classes were varied in nature, shifted between registers and levels of interaction, involved a range of translanguaging and English as a Lingua Franca-oriented phenomena, and included meta-commentary about language use. We argue that speaking and listening constructs in English-language admissions tests used in EMI contexts ideally need to be localised or locally developed to best match the unique language use characteristics of these settings.
Keywords: language assessment, language tests, university admissions, lecture discourse, domain analysis
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Background
  • Research context
  • Aims and research questions
  • Methods
    • Sampling of classes
    • Data collection procedures
    • Analysis
  • Findings
    • Macro-analysis
    • Micro-analysis
      • Translingual practices
      • ELF-oriented practices
      • Meta-commentary around language use
  • Discussion
    • Summary of findings
    • Comparison with existing admissions tests
  • Implications
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 25 August 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jemi.21009.ili
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