American content teachers’ literacy brokerage in multilingual university classrooms

To internationalize higher education, non-English dominant nations have increased English-medium instruction, posing challenges to non-native speaker (NNS) students’ written English ability. The present study examines nine American professors’ literacy brokerage at an English-medium summer school in China, where they taught courses in art history, history, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology. The professors identified vocabulary knowledge, disciplinary thinking, and personal voice as the major challenges for their Chinese students. They developed a series of adaptive strategies to facilitate subject learning: adjusting writing tasks by adopting short papers and short answer questions; assisting with major writing assignments through workshops, worksheets, group discussions, and detailed comments on student writings; valuing students’ multilingual resources by allowing Chinese in-group discussions and written exams; and connecting subject matter to the students’ home cultures. The article ends by both suggesting implications and raising questions for the teaching of English-medium content courses to NNS students.

► We studied nine U.S. professors’ adaptations at a summer school in Shanghai.
► They adjusted writing tasks by adopting short papers and short answer questions.
► Assisted with major writing tasks via workshops, worksheets, group discussions.
► Allowed the use of Chinese in class discussions and written exams.
► Connected teaching to the students’ home culture.