Lecturers’ Efforts in Building Rapport in the English-Medium Instruction (EMI) Context: Focus on the Use of Communication Strategies

Abstract Past studies reveal the prevalence of anxiety, coupled with low motivation and disengagement among students in English-medium instruction (EMI) programs. Given the detrimental impact these negative emotions can have on learning outcomes, it is imperative that teachers establish positive emotional rapport with their students. This study explores how experienced and highly rated EMI lecturers at a Chinese university’s overseas campus use communication strategies to build rapport with their students during interactive academic activities. It identifies the strategies used by these lecturers and examines how the strategies facilitate the teaching-learning process. The data, consisting of 10 hours of tutorials and 10 hours of supervisor-student supervision meetings, is analyzed using an adapted Conversation Analysis (CA) approach. The analysis reveals three types of communication strategies (CSs) frequently used by lecturers: back-channeling, code-switching, and co-creation of messages. By employing these strategies, the lecturers established a strong rapport with the students, which created an encouraging and supportive learning environment. Consequently, this positive atmosphere facilitated students’ learning of content knowledge through English. The findings of this study have implications for the training of lecturers who encounter difficulties in establishing rapport with multilingual students in the EMI setting.