Leveraging ESP teachers’ roles: EMI university teachers’ professional development in medical and healthcare fields

Abstract

Researchers have acknowledged that English-medium Instruction (EMI) instructors' professional development (PD) is crucial for promoting high-quality student learning outcomes, resulting in an increasing number of EMI PD programs worldwide across a variety of academic fields. Much research on EMI PD has focused on how to support EMI teachers rather than who can serve as teacher developers. This paper presents a glocalized EMI PD program designed collaboratively by experienced ESP teachers and EMI instructors in Taiwan's higher education. The study focused on a cohort from the medical and healthcare faculty, revealing significant improvements in their EMI pedagogical knowledge and self-efficacy. These enhancements were evidenced by increased skills and understanding related to EMI. Additionally, it highlighted the positive outcomes of dispelling EMI misconceptions, increasing awareness of effective language use in teaching, as well as addressing the nuances of EMI pedagogy and self-efficacy. The above findings suggest that ESP teachers can be leveraged as legitimate designers of PD programs to effectively address EMI university instructors' needs, given their expertise in ESP, disciplinary literacy, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Therefore, this study serves as a valuable reference and springboard for the future development of EMI PD programs.