“Forge the consensus, strengthen the teachers’ EMI skills, and improve the students’ English ability” is the crucial goal of KMU’s Medical College in implementing the MOE’s bilingual education program in the first stage. We promote EMI programs based on the principles of “students having the choice, teachers having support, and schools having readiness.” Collaborating with KMU’s Medical College, the school-level “Bilingual Teaching Promotion Resource Center” has born fruitful results in the three dimensions of teacher’s teaching ability, curriculum planning and course quality assurance, and student learning through the implementation of school policies, including “EMI Course Planning,” “EMI Policy Consensus Building,” “Teacher Development and Support System Construction,” “Student Self-study Incentive Program,” “Course Quality Control Mechanism,” and “EMI Teacher and Student Questionnaire.” The efforts and highlights of last year are summarized as follows:
【Teacher’s Teaching Ability】
I. Diverse and flexible training programs that enhance teachers’ ability to teach medical-related courses in English:
1. Online EMI training courses: 80 teachers signed up for four sessions of Cambridge University’s 40-hour online training course, “Certificate in EMI Skills,” of which 30 teachers have completed the training.
2. English teaching workshop: Professional foreign teachers were invited to help teachers brush up on English speaking pronunciation and presentation skills. In the past two years, two batches (24 sessions) have been held, and 16 teachers in the college have obtained certificates.
3. EMI teacher communities: In the 111 Academic Year, a total of 3 EMI teacher communities were established, "English Teaching (EMI) Observation Skills and Peer Observation Learning Activities Development Community," "EMI Novice Faculty Community," and "Internationalization of Education, Teacher Power PLUS Community" to strengthen teachers' EMI teaching knowledge and learn from each other through community activities.
4. Inter-school EMI training program and teacher community: We collaborated with the Southern Regional Resource Center for Bilingual Education (National Sun Yat-sen University), co-organized the EMI Entry Workshop, and invited Fulbright international scholars to conduct intensive 8-hour physical training, with a total of 13 teachers from the university participating in the activity. In addition, since the 110 Academic Year, the College of Medicine has applied to the Southern Regional Resource Center for Bilingual Education for three inter-school communities to organize community activities with teachers from National Sun Yat-sen University, National Kaohsiung Normal University, Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages, and I-shou University. In the 111 Academic Year, two batches (8 sessions) were held together, with an average of 25-30 teachers participating in each session. The first batch focuses on the training of EMI novice teachers. In contrast, the second batch promotes Peer Observation of Teaching (POT), cultivating teachers who can observe EMI courses through practical seminars and teaching observations.
5. Mock teaching and peer observation: To help teachers become familiar with the English teaching environment and gain more experiences through practice, the school invited professional EMI teachers and foreign EMI education scholars to serve as class observation committees, arranged for two students to serve as class simulation students, and gave feedback and suggestions to the teachers who conducted lecture exercises, with a total of 12 sessions held this academic year. In addition, seven teachers are accredited by the Southern Regional Resource Center for Bilingual Education as the “EMI Advisory Teacher Group" to provide support for EMI class observation. A total of 9 teachers completed one on-site classroom observation this academic year.
6. Establishment of Taiwan Digital Bio-medical EMI League: The Taiwan Digital Bio-medical EMI League has been established with the College of Biomedical Science and Engineering of National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and the College of Medicine of China Medical University. We held an exchange meeting and workshop this year and will jointly apply for inter-school community funding for the Resource Center in the new academic year.
II. EMI support system for teachers:
1. School-level promotion policies facilitating English instruction and teacher participation in certification: In addition to amending the school’s “Measures for the Accounting of Teachers’ Basic Teaching Hours” and adding “The teaching hours of some weeks taught in English are weighted by two times,” the school has also revised “Scoring rules for new hiring and promotion of full-time teachers,” “Scoring criteria for new hiring and promotion of full-time teachers of the College of Medicine,” and continued to promote the revision of the "Teacher Evaluation Method." Moreover, teachers who participate in training activities organized by the school or the Southern Regional Resource Center for Bilingual Education will receive promotion points after passing the certification. The school adopts the EMI Professional Development Program of the Southern Regional Resource Center for Bilingual Education of National Sun Yat-sen University. So far, five teachers have obtained entry-level certification, three have received junior-level accreditation, and 27 can be certified after finishing the class observation.
2. Collegial EMI course and language proficiency test subsidy: Aligned with the school’s policy to provide subsidies for EMI courses, the Medical College also introduced “Regulations for EMI course subsidy,” “Excellent EMI Teacher Award,” and “English Proficiency Test Subsidy” as an incentive to encourage 15 full-time, part-time, and clinical teachers to offer EMI courses, and three teachers with outstanding teaching performance were also selected on merit.
3. Award Scheme for English Certification Test of Faculty: The Award Scheme for English Certification Test of Faculty has been issued to improve teachers’ English ability.
4. EMI teaching assistants: The school held EMI TA training workshops to train teaching assistants with diversified courses, strengthen the quality and functions of teaching assistants, and gradually build the talent pool of EMI TA. The college hired two teaching assistants to assist in preparing EMI online module courses to smooth the process of EMI courses.
【Curriculum Planning and Course Quality Assurance】
I. Gradual increase of EMI courses in different fields:
1. General education courses: The General Education Center offered eight different EMI courses in the 110 Academic Year, including “Learning and Life,” “Introduction to Medical Regulation,” and “Life Sciences.” To continue to offer EMI general education courses in the 111 Academic Year, "Python (I) (EMI)" and " Python (II) (EMI)" were added to the course list.
2. Foundation courses: Two EMI courses, “General Biology” and “General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry,” were designed in the 111 Academic Year.
3. EMI professional courses: The Medical College offered 56 in-person EMI courses in the 111 Academic Year (11 undergraduate EMI courses and 45 postgraduate EMI courses), of which the Department of Post Baccalaureate Medicine offers 2 EMI courses, which are integrated into the basic and clinical integrated courses of “Musculoskeletal Arthrology” and “Hematology and Oncology (Including General Medicine)” taught in English, and students who do not choose EMI courses can take Chinese courses together with medical students in the same period, in line with the principle of “student having the choice” of the Ministry of Education.
4. EMI online module course: 3 online module courses under the title of “Contemporary Research Techniques in Biomedical Sciences” of the Graduate Institute were recorded in the 110 Academic Year. They offered two credits of postgraduate elective courses in the 111 Academic Year. The college will provide more EMI module courses from different basic disciplines in the future to meet the yearly goal. In addition, two sessions of “Experience sharing of online course workshop” (with an average of 30 teachers per session) in the 111 Academic Year to improve teachers’ digital capabilities and smoothly prepare online modules.
II. Review mechanism to implement quality control:
1. The three-level course committee: Aside from building consensus on the EMI definition, review process, and other related issues, the KMU also devised an EMI course review form for the three levels of the curriculum committee. In addition, we also rearranged the EMI course code and name on the course selection system and the transcript. The Medical College set up an “EMI Course Quality Control Team” to formulate the EMI course review mechanism according to the characteristics of each academic department and the curriculum plan to ensure consistent quality between EMI and non-EMI courses.
2. Statistical analysis of Teacher’s Self-assessment Questionnaire: To understand the teacher’s cognition of and attitude towards the EMI program, a “Teacher’s Self-assessment Questionnaire” was conducted, with a total of 295 primary and clinical teachers in medicine as the research population, a total of 178 questionnaires were collected, and the results of the survey showed that teachers’ “attitude towards EMI course,” “stress adjustment” and “ability and experience” were significantly positively correlated with “teachers’ cognition and willingness to EMI teaching” and “EMI teaching evaluation score.”
3. Analysis of Students’ Learning Assessment Questionnaire: The Center for General Education has designed a self-assessment questionnaire on student learning effectiveness to investigate students' learning effectiveness in the EMI course. The Medical College has completed the design of the “EMI Learning Assessment Questionnaire for the College, with 1,869 students of the Medical College as the research population. A total of 564 questionnaires were collected, and the results showed that if students had high learning cognitive willingness, positive pressure adjustment, and rich ability and experience, their learning performance in EMI was also better.
4. Openness to student feedback: Revise teachers’ teaching evaluation satisfaction questionnaire, add EMI questions, provide students with feedback channels for courses and teachers, and hold after-class seminars for teachers and students of EMI courses to understand the difficulties and formulate improvement policies.
【Student Learning】
I. Extra-curricular activity to strengthen students’ English ability, gain acceptance, and motivate self-study:
1. Student English activity: The Center for General Education has gradually increased the percentage of English used by teachers every year (Level1: 30%, Level 2: 50%, Level 3: 60%) and held the EGP, ESP and EAP activities (such as English Learning Passport activities, in the past two years, including a total of 170 sessions of English Corners, 44 sessions of English consultation, 28 TOEIC tutoring sessions, and 2 English speech and debate competition, and so on), together with the implementation of pre-test and post-test on English listening, reading, speaking, and writing to understand students’ learning effectiveness. The Medical College also organized various student activities and competitions, including the English Dubbing Contest, the EMI Student English Presentation Competition, the EMI TOEIC Preparation Course for Students, the EMI Student English Etiquette Seminar, and the EMI Student Puzzle Game. The results can be found in the self-evaluation report. In addition, to encourage students to participate in the English Proficiency Test, the college launched the “Encouraging Program for Medical Students to Participate in Off-campus English Proficiency Test,” with a total of 43 students applied in the 111 Academic Year, among them, there are 14 students at B1 Level, 17 at B2, and six each at C1 and C2.
2. English study group: The Center for General Education has organized 318 sessions of English study groups in the past two years. The seniors with excellent English ability led the first-year students to read English articles on basic science and medicine to improve student’s ability to read English textbooks. The Medical College also plans to launch the “Student EMI English Corner Implementation Program” in the 111 Academic Year, encouraging students to engage in self-study activities, with 50 sessions and 302 participants.
3. Enhancement of students’ willingness in EMI course: In addition to student feedback and various activities to improve students' English ability, the Medical College has added EMI course participation to the "Overseas Internship Selection" bonus item in the training selection of foreign partner universities to enhance students’ willingness to participate in EMI courses.
4. Buddy program: The Office of Global Affairs trained local students in the 111 Academic Year to help international students adapt to life in Taiwan. At the same time, a series of international holiday events were held (such as the Loi-Krathong Festival in Thailand and the Diwali Festival in India) to improve students’ language ability, enhance the KMU’s internationalization and competitiveness, and broaden the KMU students’ cultural vision.
The excerpt above illustrates the characteristics and achievements of Medical College’s two-year implementation of the EMI program. We have made significant innovations and breakthroughs in EMI consensus cohesion, system construction, support system development, and teaching and learning outcomes monitoring. Over the next three years, we will follow the framework established by previous institutions to enhance faculty capacity, enhance English proficiency among students in key departments, plan English bridging courses, and optimize existing EMI courses. These efforts will improve the school’s international competitiveness among faculty and students.