Feasibility of Introducing English as a Partial Medium of Instruction in Iranian Senior High Schools

Abstract

The use of Content and Language Integrated Learning has been increasing in many European countries simultaneous to the use of English as a medium of instruction in the non-Anglophone countries due to globalization and internationalization. Since the 1979 revolution, discussion on English as a medium of instruction in the Iranian formal education has been a taboo. This study aims to figure out the possibilities of introducing English as a partial medium of instruction (EPMI) for mathematics and science at senior high schools. The convergent mixed methods design was used to collect perspectives of students, content area teachers, parents, and administrative staff in Bojnord through e-mail interviews and survey questionnaires. The majority of the interviewees in the qualitative phase as well as most of the students, parents, teachers, and administrative staff in the quantitative phase have supported the possible use of EPMI. The findings of this study suggest future considerations to assist language education authorities in taking decisions to overcome students’ language proficiency constraints while developing efficient and effective programs for CLIL.

Teaching and Learning of Mathematics through CLIL, CBI, or EMI—A Systematic Literature Review

“…The corpus analysed is primarily empirical and includes qualitative, descriptive, correlational, and cross-sectional. In terms of research design, 32.7% (n = 17) used mixed methods [11,76,78,79,83,85,87,89,92,94,95,99,100,102,107,108,111]; 30.7% (n = 16) were qualitative [9,12,26,77,80,82,90,93,96,98,[103][104][105]110,112,116]; and 15.4% (n = 8) utilized a quantitative design [19,21,81,86,91,97,106,113,116]. Additionally, 13.5% (n = 7) were case studies [10,84,88,101,109,114,115], and 7.7% (n...…”

“…On the one hand, most of the research (n = 28, 53.8%) focuses on CLIL effects on the teaching and/or learning of mathematics [11,19,21,26,. On the other hand, a smaller number of studies (n = 18, 34.6%) zero in on EMI effects on the teaching and/or learning of mathematics [10,12,[96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110]. In addition, just three articles (n = 3, 5.7%) focus only on CBI without distinguishing between CLIL or EMI [111][112][113].…”

“…Similarly, we have observed that these publications spotlight the study of teaching and/or learning processes and outcomes fundamentally related to one or more of the following categories: mathematical competence (mathematical thinking, arithmetic, and problem-solving); linguistic development (linguistic skills, language proficiency, language switching, discourse competence, translanguaging, playful talk and metalinguistic awareness); cognitive development (executive functions); and digital competence. Besides, we have noticed that several investigations attempted to study mathematical competence and science competence separately without establishing connections among them [81,82,88,97,99,102,[108][109][110]. It is worth noting that some cases fit within the framework of the STEM approach [9,76,98,101,114].…”

“…The presence of other variables is also significant, such as teaching practices (78.8%, n = 41) e.g., [65,72,78,[92][93][94][95][96][106][107][108][109]111,112]; teacher training (55.8%; n = 29) e.g., [9,95,96,100,107,109,111,112]; teachers' perceptions (30.8%; n = 16) e.g., [94,107]; students' perceptions e.g., [91,108]; and students' attitudes e.g., [91,92]. Another representative variable is science competence (28.8%; n = 15) e.g., [81,82,88,97,99,102,106]. Other variables are less well represented, such as students' vocabulary, teachers' identities, etc.…”

“…To carry out the different studies, questionnaires/tests were used [11,19,21,63,76,78,79,83,[85][86][87][88][89]91,94,95,[97][98][99][100]102,107,108,111,113] (n = 25; 46.2%); analysis of documents (academic record, tests or exercises...) (n = 22; 42.3%, e.g., [95,107,111,112]); participant or non-participant observation (n = 20; 38.5%) [10,12,76,78,79,84,87,88,90,[94][95][96][103][104][105]108,109,[114][115][116]; interviews (n = 20; 38.5%) …”