Going Hand in Hand? Examining the Impact of an ESP Workshop on Students' Performance in an EMI Course

The Taiwanese government has enforced several incentives to promote the implementation of English-medium instruction (EMI) courses, and the exponential growth of EMI courses has been witnessed. However, since the majority of enrolled students are domestic and many of them are not adequately prepared for EMI, the design of supportive measures for domestic students has started to attract attention in EMI and ESP research. Current literature focuses on stakeholders’ perspectives and challenges; little research has examined how ESP can support students in EMI courses. To address this research gap, this study aims to design an adjunct ESP workshop for one target EMI course and to investigate the effectiveness of the workshops and the perspectives of students. Based on the results of a needs analysis, the ESP workshop was designed and delivered to 30 students who enrolled in the target EMI course. The findings showed that these students outperformed their counterparts in the midterm and final exams. Students also revealed satisfaction with the workshop and offered some suggestions. Implications for future ESP research and practice will be discussed in this presentation.