Ana Herriaz

This study investigates pragmatic development in the English-medium instruction (EMI) setting of the Valencian Community in Spain. More specifically, the study examines whether the intensity of EMI influences functional adequacy (FA) in second language (L2) writing. Participants were 102 EMI learners, each of whom wrote three motivation letters over one academic year in English. The rating scales designed by Kuiken and Vedder (2017) were used to examine the FA of the written texts in terms of cohesion, coherence, task requirements, content, and comprehensibility.

Over the last few years, research has explored the reliability and feasibility of the functional dimension for the assessment of writing proficiency (Kuiken & Vedder, 2016; Palloti, 2009). More recently, studies have analyzed the effectiveness of different learning environments, such as the study abroad (SA) and English-medium instruction (EMI), in increasing language proficiency (Ament & Pérez-Vidal, 2015; Humphreys & Mousavi, 2010; Storch & Hill, 2008; Taguchi, 2011).