A Survey of Chinese Engineering Students' Attitudes toward EMI

EMI (English as a Medium of instruction) has been officially promoted in Chinese universities for 15 years. This paper reports a survey of Chinese engineering students' attitudes toward EMI. It starts by presenting the necessity for engineering students to learn their major subjects in english. A group of 50 sophomores and 50 juniors, majoring in telecommunication engineering and electronic engineering, were surveyed using a 20-item questionnaire about their attitudes toward EMI. The analyses of results reveal that the participants quite agree with the importance of english as a working language and the promotion of EMI strategy in engineering education in Chinese universities, but they equally worry about their english proficiency might have negative effect on disciplinary learning. Finally, the paper suggests several specific measures to improve the efficiency of EMI policy in Chinese engineering education.