Online Input and EMI Pedagogy in the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy

This article focuses on input in online EMI during the COVID-19 pandemic and identifies and describes its salient features. It presents results from a study carried out in Northern Italian universities. The research uses mixed methods to investigate the topic, triangulating data from questionnaires sent out to lecturers, recordings of video-lectures, and interviews with lecturers. The interviews use the technique of video-stimulated recall, or retrospective interview, in which respondents verbalise their thoughts about a task after carrying it out (Dornyei, 2007: 148). In this case, participants watched the recordings of their own lectures and were asked to comment on their thought processes regarding input. The lectures were of the synchronous video conferencing lecture (SVL) variety, in which instruction occurs in real time and there is interaction between teachers and students (Martin, Ahlgrim-Delzell & Budhrani’s, 2017: 3). Results gave insight into features of EMI online input and indicated discrepancies between what the lecturers think and what they do in class. The study has implications for online EMI teaching well beyond the pandemic, given that blended learning models are increasingly adopted in higher education and EMI lecturers are concerned with how to make their lecturing more effective.