The effects of a content-based language course on students’ academic vocabulary production

Abstract

This study examines the effects of content-based language instruction (CBI)on the production of academic vocabulary in texts written in Englishby university learners enrolled in two different instruction settings, i.e. English as Medium of Instruction –EMI–, and the same programme in the students’ L1 (Catalan/Spanish), over one semester. Both the materials used in class and the learner corpus were examined in order to identify the degree to which they incorporate (i.e. cover) items from three lists of interdisciplinary academic terminology, namely the Academic Vocabulary List (AVL), the Academic Collocations List (ACL) and the Academic Formulas List (AFL). The results indicate that the class material covers 5% of ACL, 32% of AVL, and 64% of AFL, which reflects the academic and pedagogical nature of its contents. In the learner corpus, both L1 and EMI learners produced more general academic and technical words after the course. EMI learners also increased their use of collocations and formulas. The benefits of CBI for acquiring academic terminology and for developing disciplinary literacy are discussed in the light of the two settings of instruction under study.