Lexical diversity and coverage in tertiary-level STEM:
a corpus-based comparison of English-medium lectures in Anglophone and non-Anglophone contexts

The rapid growth of EMI in the tertiary sector raises some interesting questions for the Applied Linguistics and TESOL communities. For example, how and to what extent are English-medium lectures in Anglophone and non-Anglophone contexts comparable? If an L2-English user decides to study at an English-medium university, will their academic achievement be a ected if they choose an EMI setting over an L1-English setting? Crucially, without big data on EMI classroom practices we are unable to provide a rm basis on which future research into EMI can be built.
In this talk I will be presenting findings from a corpus-based research project which sought to open the door to the EMI lecture room to determine whether there are differences in the vocabulary usage pro les of EMI and L1-English lectures; to pinpoint where those differences lie; and to draw implications for students, researchers and practitioners who are engaged in English-medium tertiary education.