Guest Editors

Dr. Barry Lee Reynolds, Faculty of Education, University of Macau, BarryReynolds@um.edu.mo

Dr. Sophia Skoufaki, Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex, sskouf@essex.ac.uk

Aims and Scope

Given the dominance of English as the language of instruction across educational levels around the world (e.g., Melitz, 2018) and students' diverse English language learning needs, English language teaching and learning in English Medium Instruction (EMI) contexts have received considerable research interest. EMI refers to the use of the English language to teach academic subjects in contexts where the first language (L1) of the students is not English. As a recent review of English Language Teaching (ELT) in EMI indicates (McKinley & Rose, 2022), the challenges students face with using the traditional four language skills in EMI settings have been investigated extensively. By contrast, research into students' learning of vocabulary and grammar has been limited. As applied linguists specialising in vocabulary studies, we wish to redress this imbalance and explore vocabulary teaching and learning in EMI settings.

In particular, we are interested in how academic vocabulary (i.e., vocabulary used more frequently in academic writing and speech across disciplines than in non-academic discourse) is learned and taught in EMI contexts. Academic vocabulary is worthy of investigation because, although it poses challenges to both English as a second language (L2) and L1 students, it is not typically taught at school (e.g., Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2013) or in subject-area courses at university (e.g., Mudraya, 2006). Thus, in this special issue we aim to examine issues such as the following:

• Factors affecting incidental academic vocabulary learning
• Instruction and/or learning of lexicalised research-related concepts
• Empirical evaluation of innovative approaches to academic vocabulary instruction
• Instruction and/or learning of meaning senses of polysemous academic words; these meaning senses can be shared across disciplines or not
• Instruction and/or learning of academic phraseology
• Instruction and/or learning of academic vocabulary in the context of academic reading/writing/listening/speaking instruction
• Technology use for increased salience of academic vocabulary
• Interaction between academic vocabulary learning and instructors’ perceptions of EMI
• Teaching and learning of academic vocabulary in early years education
• Incidental learning of academic vocabulary through listening to EMI lectures

We welcome the following paper types: full-length research articles (7000-9000 words), brief reports (5000-7000 words), and review articles (5000-7000 words).

References

Beck, I.L., McKeown, M.G. & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (second edition). Guilford Press.

McKinley, J. & Rose, H. (2022). English language teaching and English-medium instruction: Putting research into practice. Journal of English-Medium Instruction, 1, 85-104.

Melitz, J. (2018). English as a lingua franca: Facts, benefits and costs. The World Economy, 41, 1750–1774.

Mudraya, O. (2006). Engineering English: A lexical frequency instructional model. English for Specific Purposes, 25, 235–256.

Important Dates

Abstract submission: January 15, 2023

Abstract review results: January 31, 2023

Full manuscript due: May 15, 2023

Anticipated publication date: June 2024

Submission Guidelines

Abstracts

E-mail the following information in a single word file attachment to both guest editors:

1. 15-word or less title
2. Author name(s), affiliation(s), and e-mail address(es)
3. 200-300 word abstract
4. 50-word bio of each author

Full Manuscripts

E-mail the following in a single word file attachment to both guest editors:

1. 15-word or less title
2. Author name(s), affiliation(s), and e-mail address(es)
3. 200-300 word abstract
4. 3-5 keywords
5. 50-word bio of each author
6. Full paper including figures, tables, and references