International students' voices on their experiences with studying in English in a multilingual university setting - a narrative inquiry approach — The Association Specialists
  1. Schedule
  2. SESSION 6: Sociolinguistic methodologies
  3. International students' voices on their experiences with studying in English in a multilingual university setting - a narrative inquiry approach

International students' voices on their experiences with studying in English in a multilingual university setting - a narrative inquiry approach (20397)

Verena Grau 1
  1. University of Vienna, Vienna, VIENNA, Austria

In the last two decades, English-medium programs (EMPs) have been implemented world-wide at an unprecedented speed, further cementing the role of English as lingua franca of academia. At the same time, the widespread belief that students’ academic literacy skills will develop automatically in in contexts where all content is taught through English, has in many higher education institutions led to removing ESP/EAP classes from EMP curricula (Arnó-Macià & Mancho-Barés, 2015). However, developing the relevant literacy skills for academic writing is key for successful graduation and a major challenge for any university student, particularly when having to do so in an L2 (e.g. Sánchez-Pérez, 2021). The present study aims to give students a voice and sheds light on how they cope with developing academic literacies over the course of their undergraduate studies.

To provide situated insights into students’ experiences, the study takes a narrative inquiry approach to both data analysis and representation. In my presentation, I will outline how this approach can be highly beneficial for research into EME contexts and draw on findings from three detailed student narratives, which were constructed using the method of narrative writing (Benson 2018) from semi-structured interviews with final-year EME students in Austria. The narratives reveal how students cope with studying in English and developing the relevant literacies required for writing academic research proposals and papers, their strategies and the multi-layered and highly situation-dependent ways they draw on their L1s and English in the context of their studies. The findings provide valuable implications on how to support students in EMPs across geographical contexts.

 

Arnó-Macià, E., Aguilar-Pérez, M., & Tatzl, D. (2020). Engineering students' perceptions of the role of ESP courses in internationalized universities. English for Specific Purposes, 58, 58–74.

Sánchez-Pérez, M. d. M. (2021). Predicting content proficiency through disciplinary-literacy variables in English-medium writing. System, 97.