【Article by EMI Resource Center】

The EMI Resource Center at National Chengchi University (NCCU) held the EMI Teaching Assistant (TA) End-of-Semester Training Workshop on November 25, 2025, at Conference Room II in the Administrative Building. Combining a thematic lecture with hands-on activities, the workshop aimed to enhance EMI TAs’ skills in motivating students to engage in reading and leading classroom activities effectively. The event was hosted by Assistant Professor Cheng-han Wu of the Department of English. Dr. Wu noted that encouraging students to complete course readings is one of the most common challenges faced by TAs, and he invited participants to reflect on strategies to build students’ interest in reading and increase their engagement.

The workshop continued with a lecture titled “Fostering Student Motivation for Reading,” delivered by English Language Fellow Jye Smallwood. Approaching the topic from a reading science perspective, Mr. Smallwood analyzed the underlying reasons behind university students’ low motivation to read in EMI courses. Mr. Smallwood emphasized that students’ reluctance to read often stems not from text difficulty or unwillingness, but from the lack of appropriate reading strategies and decoding skills, which can hinder comprehension when unfamiliar vocabulary appears. By introducing frameworks such as Incidental Learning, Noticing Hypothesis, and Scarborough’s Reading Rope, Mr. Smallwood clarified the skills involved in effective reading. Mr. Smallwood pointed out that in EMI courses, reading activities are intended to guide students toward understanding content and engaging in higher-level thinking, rather than serving as language-based assessments. Mr. Smallwood reminded TAs to uphold the principle of “teaching is not testing” to better support learners’ progress and help them build confidence in reading.

In the pedagogical section of the lecture, Mr. Smallwood explained that effective reading involves three stages—notice, process, and engage—and that both top-down and bottom-up skills must develop concurrently for successful comprehension. Mr. Smallwood shared several practical strategies applicable to EMI classrooms, including activating students’ top-down processing through prediction and background knowledge, strengthening decoding through phonemic awareness and word segmentation, and implementing techniques such as Jigsaw reading, vocabulary recording, and pre-reading highlighting to guide students’ attention and collaborative learning. Mr. Smallwood further encouraged TAs to help students reduce reading anxiety by providing sufficient context before reading, designing tasks that progress from simple to more challenging, and creating opportunities for students to express their ideas. These approaches aim to make reading a manageable and positive learning experience. The lecture offered a comprehensive overview of core principles in EMI reading instruction and provided TAs with actionable teaching strategies.

Following the lecture, the workshop moved into the “Pitch the Reading Challenge” activity designed by EMI Resource Center Assistant Nika Yeung, giving TAs the opportunity to practice the motivation strategies introduced earlier. Participants were divided into eight groups according to their colleges and tasked with promoting an assigned academic reading to their peers in English within a limited time. Each group had 15 minutes to prepare, followed by a one-minute pitch showcasing persuasive and creative approaches. Participants then voted to select the top three groups. The activity emphasized motivating students through positive engagement rather than directives, enabling TAs to experience how motivational strategies can be applied during classroom facilitation.

Through the lecture and hands-on activity, participating TAs not only deepened their understanding of reading instruction in EMI contexts but also strengthened their skills in leading classroom activities and fostering student motivation. The EMI Resource Center hopes that continued professional development opportunities will further empower EMI TAs to provide meaningful support in the classroom, help students develop effective reading strategies, enhance autonomous learning, and gain richer learning experiences in an English-medium environment.