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The Historical Backgrounds Of Emi Essay

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This section outlines the historical backgrounds of EMI in terms of a paradigm shift in teaching content subjects through English language. This section provides information under three EMI periods, namely before, during and after transitional EMI periods.

Before an EMI period, Content-based Instruction (CBI) and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) were the well-known approaches to teach subject contents through a second or foreign language (L2) in western countries. CBI is an approach to L2 teaching that focuses on target language and content (Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 1989; Crandall & Tucker, 1990). Swain and Johnson (1997) pointed out that CBI is most often associated with the genesis of language immersion education in North America in 1965. They also clarified that immersion is an innovation in language education in Canada where French was used as a medium of instruction (MOI) for students whose home language was Canadian English. CBI had a similar principle to immersion which L2 is a medium of instruction. However, CBI showed a marked difference in characteristics when it had three models of teaching (Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 1989; Davies, 2003). The first model was "theme-based language", of which content and language specialists created learning topics based on students’ preference. The second model was "adjunct language" in which language specialists linked language to content lessons. The third one was "sheltered content" where content specialists

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