Mediation in practice in an ESAP course : Versions of the Medical English student conference
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This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Mediation in practice in an ESAP course : Versions of the Medical English student conference © Authors & Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) CEFR & Language Portfolio SIG (CEFR & LP SIG), 2021 Published version Liontou, Magdalini; Braidwood, Eva Liontou, M., & Braidwood, E. (2021). Mediation in practice in an ESAP course : Versions of the Medical English student conference. CEFR Journal : Research and Practice, 4, 25-43. https://doi.org/10.37546/jaltsig.cefr4-2 2021
CEFR Journal Research and Practice Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) CEFR & Language Portfolio SIG (CEFR & LP SIG) Volume 4 (December 2021) ISSN 2434-849X
Title: CEFR Journal—Research and Practice Type: Online Journal URL: https://cefrjapan.net/publications/journal Contact: [email protected] Copyright: Edited by: Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) CEFR & Language Portfolio SIG Fergus O’Dwyer (editor in chief) Maria Gabriela Schmidt (coordinator, editor) MortenHunke(liaisonofficer,editor) Alexander Imig (treasurer, website editor) ISSN: 2434-849X DOI https://doi.org/10.37546/JALTSIG.CEFR
CEFR Journal—Research and Practice 25 CEFR JOURNAL—RESEARCH AND PRACTICE VOLUME 4 Mediation in practice in an ESAP course: Versions of the Medical English student conference Magdalini Liontou, University of Jyväskylä Eva Braidwood, University of Oulu https://doi.org/10.37546/JALTSIG.CEFR4-2 This article is open access and licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International(CCBY-NC-ND4.0)license. The Medical English course at the University of Oulu (Finland), which is compulsory for 200 first-year medical students, is designed to enhance professional English language communication focusing on work life relevance. The course design utilized the action-oriented approach promoted by CEFR CV (2018), to support the active use of language through various simulation activities. This paper describes specifically the final assignment of the Medical English course, which is integrated with the Clinical Psychology course. Having discussed topics in Finnish in groups, complementing the lectures in the Clinical Psychology course, students present in English what they have learnt in these discussions in the framework of a student conference. While preparing for the conference, the students create a poster presentation in teams. During the conference, they present the posters and, thus, practice communication relevant to work life. In this assignment, they must actively apply cross-linguistic mediation and use mediation strategies to explain new concepts and simplify the source text. Traditionally, the assignment requires students to participate in a simulated real-time face- to-face conference both as presenters and attendees. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we used an alternative solution: a hybrid conference of asynchronous presentations with real-time Q&A forums in online posts. The new design similarly provides students with stimuli to activate all modes of communication (production, reception, interaction and mediation) simultaneously. This article reports on this novel solution for the assignment together with its context and the course design in relation to mediation scales and descriptors. Moreover, an analysis of the self-assessment forms between the student cohorts in 2019 and 2020 allows an insight into the learners’ experiences. The results show that students perceive the assignment as an authentic communication task, which enhances their engagement and autonomy in the learning process. Keywords: cross-linguistic mediation, mediation strategies, pandemic, pedagogical solution, online teaching, curriculum development, CLIL 1 Introduction ForeignlanguageeducationattertiarylevelenjoysaspecialstatusinFinland;alldegreeprograms contain compulsory language courses provided free of charge at the undergraduate level. The law regulatinguniversityeducationstipulatesthatapartfromtheofficialnationallanguages,whichare FinnishandSwedish,graduatesmustattainproficiencyinatleastoneforeignlanguagetoanextent that enables them “to monitor progress in their own field and operate in an international setting” (section6ofDecree2015).AccordingtotheOfficialStatisticsofFinland,for95%ofstudentsinupper secondaryschoolsthisforeignlanguage(FL)isEnglish(OSF2019).AsFLteachinginFinlandstartsatan early stage of primary education (in some schools in year one, while the majority start in year three), students entering university have a solid FL skill foundation. Thus, the expected level of students’
26 CEFR Journal—Research and Practice Mediation in practice in an ESAP course: Versions of the Medical English student conference proficiencyatthestartofthecompulsoryFLcourseintheirundergraduatestudiesisB1onaverage. However,incertainfieldswherethecompetitiontogainadmissionishigher,suchasveterinarysurgery and degree programmes in medicine, the language competence of undergraduates is commonly B21. ThishighentryleveloflanguageproficiencyexplainswhyEnglishlanguagecoursesattertiarylevelin Finland can indeed be customized to prepare students for their future careers. While undergraduate compulsory English courses focus on professional communication (ESP), in certain disciplines and specializations, the students’ future profession requires lifelong use of academic skillsforkeepingpacewithresearchinthefield(ZrníkováandBujalková2018),amongothers,inmedicine, biomedical engineering, biochemistry. This double mission of professional and academic needs can be served in the enhanced specificity2ofEnglishforSpecificAcademicPurposes(ESAP)(Hyland2006:9-12). ThisisthecaseoftheMedicalEnglishcourse,whichiscompulsoryforfirstyearstudentsofmedicine and dentistry at the University of Oulu. The course follows the ESAP principles, and is designed to support students in developing skills and strategies that will allow them to follow in English current developments in medical research and medicine in general. In this article, we will discuss the course design, the course activities which provide practice in applying mediation skills and strategies, and will focusonthefinalcoursecomponent,whichisasimulationofascientificconference. 1.1 English for Specific and Academic Purposes in the medical curriculum The curriculum of the degree program in medicine and dentistry at the University of Oulu was reformed in 2017. The new curriculum, introduced in academic year 2017-18, places a special emphasis on the importance of teamwork in both pre-clinical and clinical studies. Training students for working in a team, for example when discussing patient presentations with colleagues to establish the diagnosis, has been a traditionalelementofmedicalteaching(Kopeletal.2019;Blackmoreetal.2018;Zivetal.2006).Thenew curriculum, however, also aims to address the challenges of an ever-expanding, globalized workplace, where such teamwork may have to be carried out in English. This recognition led to a novel solution: the integration of certain subject courses with the foreign language course, namely the Medical English course. Twosubjectcoursesinthefirst-yeardegreeprogramwerechosenforthispurpose:thecellbiologycourse andtheclinicalpsychologycourse.Bothcoursesarecompulsoryforfirstyearstudentsofmedicineand dentistry. The cell biology course was chosen because students in this course must research a current topic(differenteveryyear)andsummarizetheirfindingsinanessayinFinnish,whichisthelanguage of instruction for the course. Much of the literature students must process, however, is only available in English. Similarly, the clinical psychology course uses source materials in English. Clinical psychology is a subject course where medical students learn the aspects of psychology relevant to their profession (working with patients as general practitioners or dentists). Complementary to lectures in the course, students are assigned to groups to discuss certain topics in depth. The language of groupwork is Finnish, which prompted the integrated assignment (discussed below). Identifying the built-in English components inthesetwosubjectcoursesmarkedthefirststageoftheintegrationprocess.Clarifyingtheaimsandthe design of the integrated assignments was the task of the ESAP teachers. While the aim of the integration was to create synergy between the chosen subject courses and the ESAP course, due to institutional considerations, the Medical English course was preserved as a separate 1. ThedegreeprograminmedicineattheUniversityofOuluisthesecondmostdifficulttogetadmittedto:in 2019only14.6%ofallapplicantsgainedadmission.AccordingtotheFinnishNationalAgencyforEducation, in2020,only198studentsoutof1335weregrantedadmissionhttps://vipunen.fi/en-gb/_layouts/15/xlviewer. aspx?id=/en-gb/Reports/Haku-%20ja%20valintatiedot%20-%20korkeakoulu%20-%20yo%20-%20koulutusala_ EN.xlsb. 2. Hylandexplainsspecificity,“aconceptfundamentaltomostdefinitionsofESP”asthis“ESPinvolvesteaching the literacy skills which are appropriate to the purposes and understandings of particular communities” K. Hyland/EnglishforSpecificPurposes21(2002)385–395,386.
CEFR Journal—Research and Practice 27 Magdalini Liontou & Eva Braidwood entity in the curriculum. This solution follows the recommended practices of content and language integratedlearning(CLIL)atthetertiarylevel(Anderson2014:197).Consequently,theMedicalEnglish courseisdividedintothreemodules,whichruninthefirstyearandmustbecompletedconsecutively (Figure1).Thefirstmodulefocusesonscientificwriting:studentswriteanEnglishsummaryoftheir own cell biology essay written in the Finnish language. The second module focuses on the traditional contents of medical English courses, doctor-patient communication and doctor-doctor consultation. To build their professional vocabulary for this purpose, students process medical topics on anatomical systems and disorders using authentic texts and give team presentations in class. The main assignment of the third module is integrated with the clinical psychology groupwork. Each group of students, led by a clinical psychologist, explores one particular topic in Finnish, for which students also read some literature in English. The topics include, among others, regulation of emotions, coping with pain and trauma, and the well-being of medical practitioners. The integrated assignment in the Medical English course is based on the same topics. Regarding language skills, this assignment builds on the summary writingactivityinModule1.Usingskillsofscientificreportingsuccinctly,studentsintheESAPcoursework in the same groups formed in the clinical psychology course. The groups create a brief presentation on their own topic and explain it using a multimodal medium, a poster as such, in a simulated conference. Inthecoursedesign,thisconferenceassignmentisidentifiedasscientificreporting(Figure1).Inaddition to using English for professional and academic purposes, this assignment supports transferable skills such as leadership skills, time management, creativity, analytical reasoning, and critical thinking, among others, which they will need in their future working lives. Figure 1. Course design of Medical English: extent, level, aims and components. TheseassignmentsintheMedicalEnglishmodules(Figure1),whichhavebeencreatedasafollow-up to the Finnish medium subject courses, are grounded in the CLIL approach. The model is what Bentley identifiesassoftCLIL,whichisalanguage-ledapproachtocontentlearning,where“somecurricular topicsaretaughtduringalanguagecourse”(2010:6).Themodelisbasedonfindingcertainareasand assignments in subject courses which students can revise and extend in the foreign language and, thus, enhance their learning of the subject. Enhancing subject knowledge while using English is particularly relevant in Module 3. Integrating the clinical psychology group discussions, which are carried out in
28 CEFR Journal—Research and Practice Mediation in practice in an ESAP course: Versions of the Medical English student conference Finnish, in other words, Language A 3(LA), with an assignment in the Medical English course boosts students’ subject knowledge. The reporting in the ESAP course on their psychology topic in English, which is Language B (LB) in this case, and the various language and communication skills applied in theprocessenhancestudents’learningandwillleadtohigherlevelcognitiveprocessesidentifiedin Bloom’staxonomy(Andersonetal.2001);seeFigure2.SwitchingfromLAtoLBisthecoreelementof these activities, and are clearly tasks based on the use of cross-linguistic mediation. The CLIL approach used in the ESAP course creates the framework for supporting students’ higherlevel learning. The assignment is to prepare a poster presentation in groups on a pre-selected topic. Preparing a presentation and participating in the conference, requires the use of various learning strategies including mediation and communication skills. Figure 2 demonstrates the various stages of learning students accomplish when reporting their work in English in the simulated conference. Stage 1-remembering: preparing for the conference starts with recalling subject knowledge acquired in the subject course. Stage 2-understanding: what does the assignment mean? What is the purpose of the conference? How do we structure and convey information in a conference? How can we work on this as a team? How can we divide the workload? To answer these questions, students use support provided by the teachers: model example posters, analysis of English conference posters, text structure, design features, presenting a poster, relevant vocabulary, style guide, etc. In Stage 3, students apply language skills while mediating the content acquired in Finnish and English to the genre of the poster. They use mediation skills corresponding to the CEFR mediation scales, described explicitly in Figure 3. In Stage 4, while preparing theposterpresentationstudentsneedtoanalyzethecommunicativesituation:whatisthedifference between the text of the poster and the presentation of the poster? In other words: mediating between written and spoken production and referencing visual data. Additionally, they must also consider the aim oftheconference:tolearnaboutclinicalpsychologytopicsotherthantheirown.Thus,inStage5,theywill havetoevaluatetheaffordancesofthemedium(posteranditspresentation)andtheirownknowledgeof thepsychologytopic.Oncetheyhavefollowedthisprocess,theyreachtheultimategoal,Stage6,which is creating a poster presentation, when they can demonstrate their higher-level learning. Figure 2 also presentsalistofthescaffoldingtoolsteachersusetosupportstudentsinthisprocess. Figure 2.Bloom’srevisedtaxonomy(AndersonandKrathwohl2001)adaptedfortheMedicalEnglish conferenceassignment(Module3) 3. Theterms‘LanguageA’(sourcelanguage)and‘LanguageB’(targetlanguage)areusedinaccordancewith CEFRCV(2018).
CEFR Journal—Research and Practice 29 Magdalini Liontou & Eva Braidwood 1.2 Medical English as situated social practice: the role of mediation TheconceptofmediationwasbrieflyintroducedintheCommonEuropeanFrameworkin2001(Council of Europe 2001). The Companion Volume (CV) (2018) expanded the concept and introduced three categories with scales and descriptors: mediating a text, mediating communication, and mediating concepts. Moreover, five scales of mediation strategies were presented: explaining a new concept by linking to previous knowledge, breaking down complicated information, adapting language, and strategies to simplify a text by either amplifying and/or streamlining it. TheMedicalEnglishcoursedrawsuponvariouspedagogicaltraditions;Vygotsky’ssocialconstructivism theory, the concept of social negotiation and scaffolding, and Bandura’s social learning theory. As Piccardo,NorthandGoodier(2019)pointout,thecomplexconceptofmediationwhichseesthelearner as a social agent, also draws upon these socio-cultural theories. In this course, students simultaneously practise mediation activities from all three categories. The conference assignment provides an authentic experience through simulation of a real-life event, which is a training method commonly used in medical education. Participating in the conference, “the user/learner acts as a social agent who creates bridges and helps to construct or convey meaning” (Council of Europe 2018), sometimes within the same language [especially during team collaboration], sometimes from one language to another. The simulated conference follows the traditional conference structure: 20-minute presentations followedby10-minuteQ&Adiscussions.Eachteammembercanchoosefromvariousdutiesandroles: presenter, team leader, design expert, script writer, researcher, editor. Prior to the conference, each teammustparticipateintwotutorials,whichserveasthescaffoldingforthisstudent-ledactivity.Inthe tutorials,theteamspresentthefirstandseconddraftoftheirpostersandrehearsethepresentation. They get informal feedback both on their poster and the presentation from the teacher as formative assessment of the assignment. On the conference day, the students give electronic peer-feedback to the presenters in English, while the posters and the presentations are assessed by the psychology and ESAP teachers, who monitor the conference and give overall feedback at the end of the conference. In addition to the initial collaboration in planning the integration, the teachers cooperate each year in formulating theconferenceassignment;theyidentifythepsychologytopicstobeusedfortheconferenceactivity, and then at the end, when they evaluate the conference. Intheannualrevisionofthecoursedesign,theCan-DodescriptorsofferedintheCVweretakeninto consideration and adapted when we formulated the conference assignment. We analysed the Can Do descriptorsof“relayingspecificinformation”,“processingtext”,“explainingdata”,“translatingawritten text”, and “note-taking” mediation scales both in speech and writing. As the level of our medical students isB2-C1,weusedtheB2+statementswhenavailabletospecifytheobjectivesoftheassignment(Table 1).Inthisprocess,wealsoacknowledgedthatsomescalesaremorepermanent,dominant scales, e.g., “relaying information in speech/writing” and “processing information in speech/writing” than others, the supplementary scales, such as “explaining data”, “translation” and “note-taking”, due to the variety of materials students had to process.
30 CEFR Journal—Research and Practice Mediation in practice in an ESAP course: Versions of the Medical English student conference Table 1. Medical English Course (Module 3) – Can Do mediation statements The conference as a course activity is designed as an induction into professional life, in line with the law on language education in HE in Finland. However, at the planning stage we were unaware that the replicationofworklifeexperience,namelytheconferencesetting,wouldposeasignificantchallengein theCovid-19pandemic.Thefollowingsectionsdiscussoursolutionandstudents’reactions. 1.3 Solutions during the Covid-19 pandemic DuetotheCovid-19pandemic,face-to-faceteachingwascancelled,andcoursestransferredtoonline meetingsinthesecondweekofMarch2020.Thismeantthattheconference,scheduledfor8-9May 2020,wasindangerofbeingpostponedorcancelled.WhilethetraditionalcomponentsoftheMedical English course, Module 2 (language of doctor-patient consultation) were adopted to the online mode relatively smoothly, this was not the case for the group discussions in the psychology course. Since the psychologists leading the group discussions work in the clinical setting, and as hospitals were restricted
CEFR Journal—Research and Practice 37 Magdalini Liontou & Eva Braidwood much I spend on each presentation and quiz.” (student no. 29) • “Maybe the fact that I could choose 4 most interesting topics to me.”(studentno.37) • “As the presentations were in Moodle, it was easy to watch them as you could pause them and watch again if some information was missed.” (studentno.104) 3.3 RQ2: Special circumstances (Covid-19 pandemic) AspresentedinbothTable6andFigure3,thevastmajoritydidnotreportsignificantdifficulties(M=2.21, SD=1.151)regardingthespecialcircumstancesimposedbythepandemic.Onlyasmallpercentageofthe respondents(13.83%)foundthetransitionfromface-to-facetoonlinemodedifficult.Moreover,inthe multiple-choice option (Table 3) students revealed that they found the conference better than expected (38.8%)andonlylessthanaquarteroftheparticipants(17.5%)reportedtheirdisappointment.Overall, the vast majority acknowledged that the online conference was the right solution during the pandemic (78.1%),whileveryfewfoundtheconferencetootime-consumingandnotworthparticipatingin(9%). Table 6. Self-assessment questionnaire in Medical English – special circumstances Figure 4.IllustrationofTable5 The combined results in Table 7 illustrate that there was no correlation between the difficulties caused by the online mode and the opinions about the usefulness of the conference or the aspects the studentsfoundusefulinModule3.InTable7,thePearsonChi-squarevalueswereover0.05(0.250> 0.05and0.337>0.05).Takingthesefactsintoconsideration,thenullhypothesiswasaccepted,andthe values are considered independent.
38 CEFR Journal—Research and Practice Mediation in practice in an ESAP course: Versions of the Medical English student conference Table 7. Pearson chi-Square analysis: responses regarding the special circumstances and usefulness of the conference / Pearson chi-Square analysis: responses regarding the special circumstances and useful aspects of the conference 4 Discussion Mediation,accordingtoCosteandCavalli(2015:15),canberegarded“eitherasaimingtoprovideaccess to information and knowledge and to competence building (cognitive mediation) or as contributing to interaction,thequalityofexchangesandtheresolutionofconflicts(relationalmediation)”.Byanalyzing the students’ responses in the self-assessment questionnaire, we aimed to investigate how students on the Medical English course perceived various mediation activities (face-to-face team presentations, conference poster creation, and conference presentation) as part of their learning and development, andhowthepandemicaffectedtheirperceptions. Focusingonthefirstresearchquestion“Howdidstudentsperceivethemediationactivities(team presentations,conferenceposterscreationsandposterpresentations)aspartofModule2-3inthe2019- 2020academicyear?”,wefoundthatstudentsrecognizedthebenefitsoftheactivities.Theresponses were mostly positive for all mediation tasks. A positive correlation was found between the usefulness of the face-to-face team presentations of medical topics in Module 2, and the conference presentations in Module 3. An explanation for this could be students’ familiarity with the medical and psychology topics, whichgavetheappropriatecontextforthestudentstoselectandpresentrelevantinformation(Zrníková and Bujalková, 2018), as well as the scaffolding that promoted cognitive mediation in the Medical Englishcourse(CosteandCavalli2015:15).Wealsoidentifiedfourmainthemesregardingthestudents’ perceptionsofthemediationtasksinthecourse:subjectcourseknowledge(63.3%),transferableskills (22.34%),languageskills(9.04%),andlearnerautonomy(5.32%).Thefindingsappeartobeinagreement withanotherstudy(PavlovskayaandLankina2019),whichhighlightsthatmediationcombineslanguage proficiencywithtransferableskillsassociatedwithprofessionalknowledgeandfutureemployability. Inhigherproficiencylevels(B2-C1),courseactivitiesgenerallyinvolveawiderrangeofgenresand discourseswhichstudentsmustmediatetocompletethetask(Stathopoulou2020).Thisconference indeed is such a course component, which stimulates mediation skills. Most respondents recognized the mediation products (poster creation/presentation) as the most significant contributors to their
CEFR Journal—Research and Practice 39 Magdalini Liontou & Eva Braidwood development, especially related to subject knowledge and transferable skills. Moreover, their responses seemed to focus primarily on the mediation products rather than on language learning. This clearly resonates with the action-oriented approach introduced in the CV, which emphasizes “purposeful, collaborativetasks,whoseprimaryfocusisnotlanguage”(2018:27).Theroleofmediationinthecourse wasmulti-functional;creatingarelationshipbetweenthelearnerandteachers,thelearnerwithother learners,andwiththematerials(Beaccoetal.2016).Noconsensuswasfoundregardingthemostuseful part of the conference. However, all students’ responses regarding the presentations and posters can be clearly linked to the mediation strategies and scales and/or authenticity of the mediation task. Specifically,manyexamplesofmediationstrategiessuchas“linkingtopreviousknowledge,adapting language, and streamlining a text” (COE 2020a: 90) according to the requirements of the poster as a new genre, were identified under the transferable skills theme. The students reflected on the procedures and the decisions they had to make. Many commented on the adaptation of language based on the audience and product. Their answers reveal that the students perceived the assignment asacombinationofmediationstrategiesandtasks;whichconfirmsthatthetaskfollowsStathopoulou’s recommendation(2015)thatthemediationactivityanditsstrategiesshouldbeutilizedsimultaneously as they complement each other. Regarding the second research question “How did students cope with the mediation activities duringtheCovid-19pandemic?”,ourfindingsdemonstratethatmoststudentsfelttheybenefitedfrom participating in the conference and that the online solution was a successful alternative during the pandemic. Compared to the 2018-2019 student cohort about which we reported in the 2019 EALTA Conference,theviewsofthe2020cohortwereslightlymorepositiveregardingtheusefulnessofthe conference.Themeanvalueofthe2019cohortanswerswas3.19,whilein2020,thevaluewas3.2.This demonstratesthatthepandemicanditsconsequencesdidnotnegativelyaffectthestudents’perceptions of the usefulness of the mediation activities. Hence, we can conclude that the online solution achieved the original aim of the conference assignment: higher learning through mediation. This notion is supported by the Pearson Chi-square value, which showed no correlation between the aspects found useful in the conferenceanddifficultiesexpressedregardingtheonlinemode.Additionally,thelownumber(14%) ofstudentswhofounditdifficulttoswitchtoonlinesessionsandthehighnumber(78.1%)ofthose accepting overall the online conference as a good solution during the pandemic indicate that students adaptedquicklytothevirtualmodel.Thisfindingalsoemergedfromtheopen-endedquestions.Thisis in line with recent studies reporting the students’ positive perceptions of the online teaching-learning offeredduringthepandemic(Mishraetal2020).Anotherexplanationforoverallsatisfactionwiththe onlinedeliverycouldbeagenerationalcharacteristic:GenerationZ,theinternetgeneration,displaysa willingness and ability to communicate online and operate in a virtual environment from a young age (YawsonandYamoah2020). 5 Conclusion This study has implications for designing language and content integrated courses in HE settings utilizingmediationactivities.Thefindingsofthisresearchgivevoicetostudents’perceptionsregarding the mediation tasks, a view that is often neglected in research. Additionally, this study can inform ESAP practice in medical education. Overall, students’ responses regarding the usefulness of the conference assignmentseemtohighlightthebenefitofmediation,whichaccordingtoDendrinos,is“apurposeful social practice, aiming at the interpretation of (social) meanings which are then to be communicated/ relayedtoothers”(2006:12).Respondentsalsoacknowledgedthatparticipatingintheconferenceclearly enhanced their subject learning and facilitated higher-level cognitive processes, which is obviously due tothesoft-CLILcoursedesign.Acknowledgingthebenefitstostudents’learningandtheirsatisfaction, the teachers, however, experienced the solution as a considerable challenge with an increased workload, primarily due to the unprecedented circumstances. This contradiction is similar to the difficulties reported in another CLIL/ESAP course (Braidwood and Hirvonen-Kantola 2018). Compared to other
40 CEFR Journal—Research and Practice Mediation in practice in an ESAP course: Versions of the Medical English student conference studiesusinganadaptedversionoftheCanDomediationstatementsinclass(Saito2020;Schmidt and Head 2020), we considered that applying open-ended questions in the self-assessment form would stimulate a deeper understanding of the students’ experiences of the processes that mediation activities involve. However, in future we will include certain examples of Can Do mediation statements in the self-assessment form after the open-ended questions to facilitate further exploration of the conferenceassignment.Regardingtheresearchmethodology,onelimitationweidentifiedintheuse of open-ended questions was that many students misunderstood the purpose of the self-assessment questionnaire and used it as a tool for providing feedback on the course design, which is possibly due to the widespread practice of giving feedback within HE and outside, particularly in Finnish healthcare. Therefore, we think that elements of self-assessment must be introduced at earlier stages of the course. Suchtaskscouldcomplementpeer-feedback,raiseawarenessofthebenefitsofself-monitoringthe learning progress, and consequently the course will also foster students’ metacognitive skills. 6 References Anderson,Lorin&DavidKrathwohl.2001.A taxonomy for Learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York: Longman. Anderson,Rob.2014.AParallelApproachtoESAPTeaching.Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 136.194-202. Andrews,Jane&HelenHigson.2014.IsBolognaworking?Employerandgraduatereflectionsofthe quality, value and relevance of business and management education in four European union countries. Higher Education Quarterly68(3).267-287. Bandura,Albert.1977.Social learning theory.EnglewoodCliffs,N.J.:PrenticeHall. Beacco, Jean-Claude, Michael Byram, Marisa Cavalli, Daniel Coste, Mirjam Egli Cuenat, Francis Goullier &JohannaPanthie.2016.Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, Language Policy Division. https://rm.coe. int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=09000016806ae621 (accessed30January2021). Bentley,Kay.2010.The TKT Course: CLIL Module. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Blackmore,Andrew,EiriniVasileiouKasfiki,&MakaniPurva.2018.Simulation-basededucationto improvecommunicationskills:asystematicreviewandidentificationofcurrentbestpractice.BMJ Simulation and Technology Enhanced Learning,4(4),159-164. Blaikie,Norman.2003.Analyzing Quantitative data. London, UK: Sage Publications Ltd. Braidwood,Eva&SariHirvonen-Kantola.2018.ContentandLanguageIntegratedLearningapproach in Urban Design. In Elise Lorentsen & Kristine Annabell Torp (eds.), Formation—Architectural Education in a Nordic Perspective.60-73.Copenhagen:Nordic-BalticAcademyofArchitecture (NBAA)/Architectural Publisher B. Braidwood,Eva&MagdaliniLiontou.2019.Scientific Conference: an authentic environment to assess Medical students’ English communication skills. Paper presented at the European Association for LanguageTestingandAssessment,UniversityCollegeDublin.31May-2June2019. Bryman,Alan.2012.Social Research Methods. 4th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coste,Daniel&MarisaCavalli.2015.Education,Mobility,OthernesstheMediationFunctionsof Schools. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. https://rm.coe.int/education-mobility-otherness-the- mediation-functions-of-schools/16807367ee(accessed25January2021). CouncilofEurope.2001.CommonEuropeanFrameworkofReferenceforLanguages:Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://www.coe.int/en/web/ common-european-framework-reference-languages.(accessed17January2021). CouncilofEurope.2018.CommonEuropeanFrameworkofReferenceforLanguages:Learning, teaching, assessment Companion volume with new descriptors. Strasbourg, France: Council
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42 CEFR Journal—Research and Practice Mediation in practice in an ESAP course: Versions of the Medical English student conference Tashakkori,Abbas&CharlesTeddlie.2010. SAGE handbook of mixed methods in social & behavioral research. 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. Thomas,Gary.2009.How to do your research project: A guide for students in education and applied social sciences. London: Sage. Yawson,DavidEshun&FredAmofYamoah.2020.UnderstandingsatisfactionessentialsofE-learning in higher education: A multi-generational cohort perspective. Heliyon.6(11).05519-05523. Wellington,Jerry.2000.Educational research: Contemporary issues and practical approaches. London: Continuum. Ziv,Amitai,OritRubin,AvitalMoshinsky,etal.2008.MOR:Asimulation-basedassessmentcentre for evaluating the personal and interpersonal qualities of medical school candidates. Medical Education.42(10).991-998. Zrníková,Petra&MáriaBujalková.2018.Developmentofacademicskillsandlearner’sautonomyin medical English courses. Journal of Language and Cultural Education.6(3).1-20. 7 Authors’ Contributions The authors have contributed equally to this study. 8 Biographies Magdalini Liontou works as a PhD researcher focusing on language assessment at the University of Jyväskylä and as an ESP teacher at the University of Oulu. She is interested in the cultural perspective of assessment,languagemediationandinclusivepedagogy.Shehasalsoco-authoredthebook“Scientific Communication in English” for an ESP course taught at Nanjing Institute of Technology (China). Currently, she is the communication member in the “Mediation in Teaching, Learning and Assessment” (ME.T.L.A.) project at the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) regarding cross-linguistic mediation and the“Fosteringthedoctorofthe21stcentury”(For21)Erasmus+project. Eva Braidwood (PhD English Lit.) has been responsible for the ESP curricula for the School of Architecture and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Oulu for over a decade. Her professional and research interests include discipline specific discource variations in academic and scientific writing, CLIL and mediation. She is an associate partner in the “Mediation in Teaching, Learning and Assessment” (ME.T.L.A.) project at the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) devoted to cross-linguistic mediation, she has been coordinating University of Oulu’s contribution to the “Fostering the doctor of the21stcentury”(For21)Erasmus+CapacityBuildingproject.
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