The present study investigates the factors that motivate Taiwanese students to choose a basic Spanish course taught through English Medium Instruction (EMI) while the same course is also offered in their native language, Chinese Mandarin. The research question is: What motivates Taiwanese students to choose a Spanish course taught through EMI? The participants were 21 Taiwanese college students from different disciplines. They all filled out an anonymous questionnaire on motivation for choosing the course. Nine of them also participated in a 10-minute individual interview on why they chose the EMI course. Students’ motivation was analyzed based on the four capitals proposed by Richard and Pun (2022): (1) disciplinary (2) linguistic (3) cultural (4) economic. The results indicate that the four capitals are significantly correlated with students’ motivation for choosing the EMI course. Cultural capital holds the strongest correlation with motivation, and it is also strongly correlated with the other three capitals. This suggests that the main factor that attract students to choose the EMI Spanish course is the opportunity to integrate with people from different cultures. In addition, the participants believe that they will learn more in the EMI course than in the same course taught in Chinese. Although the EMI Spanish course is not relevant to the students’ majors, being in an EMI class improves their English proficiency, which is essential for their future career; therefore, the EMI Spanish course entails an indirect benefit to their future career.

Authors:
Diana Hsienjen Chin, Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
Diana Hsienjen Chin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages in Taiwan. She specializes in Multilingualism, L3 acquisition, Hybrid teaching/learning, and teaching Spanish through EMI.

Additional website of interest
https://english.wenzao.tw/college-of-european-and-asian-languages/departmentof-spanish/

See this presentation on the full schedule – Saturday Schedule

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