Linguistics and English Language

Language in context seminar

Speaker: Sameya Priom (University of Edinburgh)

Title: Bangla as a scaffolding strategy in English medium classrooms in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract: English as a medium of instruction (EMI) has been adopted in many non-anglophone countries to teach academic subjects (CLIL, content integrated language learning). Nowadays, an increasing number of universities in non-English speaking countries are using EMI. Research in these contexts has revealed that the implementation of EMI is not without difficulties as learners experience problems accessing curricula in a language they are only inadequately prepared for. But research also shows that classroom participants draw on their first language to scaffold learning. Bangladesh is no exception. It has implemented EMI in some of its higher education while the majority the students attending them have not been prepared for learning in English. It has been observed that teachers and students experience difficulty while working and studying in English-medium higher educational institutions. The proposed research focuses on the implementation of EMI in English-medium higher educational institution in Dhaka, namely North South University. This research investigates the question whether, in this context, Bangla, the students’ and teachers’ native language, is used as a scaffolding strategy to make the lectures comprehensible.

Speaker bio: Sameya Priom (MA in Psycholinguistics, University of York; BA in English with High Distinction, North South University) is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the Department of English and Modern Languages in North South University Dhaka. Her research is in the field of bilingualism, with an emphasis of translanguaging within educational contexts. Sameya Priom’s research is investigating how L1 (Bangla) can be beneficial in scaffolding lectures in classrooms where the medium of instruction is English. During her Masters, she undertook her dissertation on Bilingualism from identity related perspective. However, while teaching in an English Medium University where most of the students are emergent bilinguals, she realized that the alternation between the L2 (English) and the mother tongue (Bangla) might maximize the lecture output, which in most of the time is delivered in English (medium of instruction). Hence, her current research focuses on Bilingualism in education context from organizational perspective.

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József Wells

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Feb 25 2022 -

Language in context seminar

2022-02-25: Bangla as a scaffolding strategy in English medium classrooms in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Online via link invitation