MA-students’ lecture comprehension of EMI courses at a Swedish university

Sammanfattning: The present quantitative study investigates MA-students’ comprehension of lectures in the first language (L1) and in English at a large university in Sweden. Forty-five students responded to a self-assessment questionnaire survey regarding their comprehension of lectures in the L1 and lectures in English. The scores from these were compared to each other to see if English lectures are more difficult to comprehend than lectures in the L1 and if so, to what extent. The findings show that, although not substantial, most students find almost all aspects regarding English lectures to be more difficult than L1 lectures. This is in line with what other studies investigating the effects of English Medium Instruction in higher education have found. The most prominent issues were with unfamiliar vocabulary and expressions as well as unclear pronunciation of content. The results suggest that there is a need to improve students’ and lecturers’ English proficiency as well as the effectiveness of lectures in higher education, regardless of the language of instruction.