78Needs in EMI Classesheavy emphasis on reading and grammar （e.g., Uchihara & Harada, 2018）, and the level of proficiency required to study content subjects in English, their second language （L2）, at the university. This gap highlights a “connectivity” issue. Attention is needed to support students; however, research on the specific language skills required to succeed in EMI classes is scarce. Failing to bridge this gap, some students struggle （Kiyota, 2022a, 2022b） or find EMI courses too demanding and end up dropping them （Hino, 2017; Kojima, 2021; Ruegg, 2021; Tsuneyoshi, 2005）.To address this connectivity issue, identifying the most challenging tasks students frequently encoun-ter during their EMI classes is crucial for supporting students. Several studies have explored this area in the Japanese EMI context. First, Suzuki et al. （2017） surveyed 15 participants in the Department of English Language and Literature at Waseda University to inquire about which aspects of EMI tasks the students found satisfactory or frustrating. This study showed that students found spontaneous speech production （e.g., group discussions） more frustrating than reading and listening comprehension. Additionally, Suzuki et al. （2018） conducted a needs analysis involving 15 participants, using an open-ended questionnaire in the same department. They investigated students’ prior language-learning experiences, target needs, learning needs, reasons for taking EMI courses, skills they wished to learn through EMI, self-perceived achievements, and language difficulties. Their results indicated that most students faced challenges when participating in group discussions during EMI classes, which could be attributed to their lack of prior English training in high school.Another needs analysis, based on a mixed-methods approach, was conducted by Tahara et al. （2021）, with a finer subdivision of EMI tasks （e.g., “Discuss in English in pairs or groups what you have read in specialized textbooks written in English” for group discussions）, at a leading private university in Japan. By interviewing 11 participants, they identified 10 tasks that occurred before and after each class: 11 tasks during lectures, seven tasks during discussions, nine tasks during presentations, and 10 tasks during assign-ments. They then conducted a questionnaire survey with 57 participants, inquiring about their perceived task frequency and difficulty for each sub-task using a four-point Likert scale. Their results revealed that EMI classes’ most frequent and difficult tasks were reading literature, discussing and writing about what students had read, and writing lengthy papers such as end-of-term assignments and graduate theses. Using a similar approach, Moriya and Matsumura （2022） conducted a needs analysis of online EMI classes. They identified 31 common tasks shared by face-to-face and online classes, 21 tasks specific to online English-for-academic-purpose （EAP） classes, and 13 tasks unique to online EMI classes.Although there has been an increase in the number of surveys of EMI in recent years, as reviewed above, more information is needed about students’ perceptions of the frequency and difficulty of tasks they encounter in EMI as implemented by the Department of English Language and Literature, School of Education at Waseda University. Further exploratory surveys are needed to clarify the English language skills required for EMI in this department, contributing to better implementation of EMI in the future.
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