Students and lecturers' attitudes towards English medium of instruction in engineering courses at Rwanda polytechnic

Abstract

Many African countries use foreign languages as media of instruction. Even countries that have a common language have adopted a foreign language as a medium of instruction. It is the case for Rwanda which enjoys being a monolingual society and yet has made English a medium of instruction at all levels of education mainly because English has become a global lingua franca. However, prior research has reported difficulties in implementing English as a MoI in Rwanda due to limited proficiency in English. This study investigates the students’ and lecturers’ attitudes towards learning and teaching engineering courses through the medium of English at Rwanda Polytechnic. The mixed research design was used to collect and analyse data. A Likert scale questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from three Polytechnic Campuses in order explore students’ attitudes regarding the use of English medium of instruction (EMI) in engineering courses. Besides the questionnaire, qualitative data was collected from students through Focus Group Discussions to deeply understand the students’ perceptions, challenges and coping strategies as regards the use of EMI in engineering subject content. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty content lecturers. Data analysis was done by merging quantitative data with qualitative data so as to get an integrated understanding of students and lecturers views about EMI. The findings show that there are mixed perceptions about EMI in engineering subjects. On one hand, both students and lecturers view EMI as an opportunity for their career prospects. On the other hand, they disagreed with the use of English-only medium of instruction due to the fact that both students and lecturers experience difficulties to accomplish academic tasks due to poor proficiency in English. Findings therefore show that L1 is predominantly used to facilitate content teaching and learning. The preference of L1 and the mixture of English and L1 is meant to increase students’ participation, explain domain-specific terminology thereby maximizing the comprehension of the subject content. Workable policy changes and best practices which may help in improving the English proficiency levels for students and lecturers/teachers at all levels of education in Rwanda are recommended. Areas for further research meant to address EMI-related issues are also suggested.