Dispelling some misconceptions of English-medium instruction

What Makes Epistemic Injustice an “Injustice”?

This article provides a critical review of English medium instruction (EMI) policy/practices in the K-12 multilingual schools in South Asia, especially in Nepal, India, and Pakistan. Employing Bourdieu’s (1993) lens of ‘linguistic capital’ and ‘linguistic marketplace,’ the article takes stock of (a) the development of EMI and its ideological and pedagogic motivations, (b) the models of EMI policy in relation to mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) and their practices, and (c) social justice concerns that arise from such policies/practices. As the review of research and policy/practices reveals, EMI is ideologically perceived as a means of acquiring the linguistic capital, often believed to provide access to the global economy; and, therefore, a liberating tool for socioeconomically minoritized groups. Such ideology has, then, oriented the concerned bodies to position EMI within the framework of MTB-MLE in South Asian countries, creating the discourse of inequality and injustice for different social groups. The article continues the argument that the language policies, which are being developed/practiced in the lure of economic globalization, ignoring the local realities, become a source of marginalization along the lines of class, ethnicity, gender, and regions.

Although the incorporation of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in multilingual higher education institutions is widely accepted, it may be a source of tension for university professors for whom English is an additional language, particularly when both teacher and students share an L1 other than English. A need exists to examine how linguistic attributes of EMI are interpreted and executed by participants. This study focuses on dialogue between a content specialist and a language specialist during an EMI teacher development partnership at a multilingual Catalan university. Membership Category Analysis (MCA) explores the categories made relevant in interaction, category associated features and responsibilities, and their procedural relevance within the interaction. The article focuses on results relating to the emerging identities of EMI classroom participants and related linguistic attributes. The results shed light on tensions relating to language use in EMI, and may inform EMI teacher development processes and classroom language policy.

The number of English medium instruction (EMI) courses has grown dramatically in non-Anglophone countries during the past three decades. As EMI is considered ‘an unstoppable train’, the Taiwanese government wants to be on board that train. This current research investigates EMI language practices at one university in Taiwan through interviews of three EMI instructors as key informants and how their practices and beliefs were misaligned with the government’s language policy. Findings revealed three misalignments at the macro, meso, and micro levels of the implementation of EMI at the university. The misalignments were: (1) the incongruity of students’ English proficiency as a prerequisite for enrollment, (2) inconsistencies in defining EMI, and (3) instructors perceived conflicting learning needs and interests of students. The conflicting interests suggested that EMI could be considered a problem, a right or a resource by different stakeholders. The study concluded that a top-down policy with language-as-resource orientation may not be the way to implement EMI effectively. Instead, language-as-right orientation to promote EMI seems to be agreed by all stakeholders and policy makers at the macro, meso and micro level.

English Medium Instruction (EMI) is a growing phenomenon in Nepalese private school education. Learning engagement through EMI in different subjects is believed to be effective for developing learners’ communicative competence and comprehension skills. However, The English proficiency of the teachers, and their positive attitude towards English language and the use of judicious classroom language policy are considered crucial for the effective output of EMI without affecting the learners’ mother tongue. In this context, this study aimed to present the attitudes of secondary-level teachers towards English Medium of Instructions (EMI). It further attempted to find out the effects and challenges of EMI in the context of English medium schools in Mahendranagar, Kanchanpur. A qualitative phenomenological design was employed to extract the lived experiences of the participants with EMI. The researcher adopted a non-random convenience sampling method to collect information from two secondary-level teachers teaching Mathematics and Science at private English-medium schools in Mahendranagar, Kanchanpur. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect the lived experiences of the participants with EMI. The findings of this study revealed that teachers were positive towards EMI although they encountered challenges to its effective implementation. The results imply that EMI helps teachers in their profession, as competent English-Medium instructors are well paid and offered better career opportunities. Similarly, it creates a platform for the learners to develop communicative competence in English and meet their career goals. Despite these plus sides, EMI can pose a threat to our national or local languages if it is used exclusively without appropriate and judicious language policy.

Both Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, and English the official language are widely used for spoken and written communication in different contexts in Pakistan. In education; however, a linguistic divide is evident in the two-stream system of education - mainly referred to as Urdu medium and English medium - according to the dominant language of instruction in an institutional setting. Urdu medium schools are normally the state schools providing free education to the poorer communities while the English medium schools are private fee-paying schools for the economically well-off sections of society. This disparity in the educational system has loaded the labels English medium and Urdu medium with a range of meanings that constitute self and other’s perceptions of identity, in addition to signaling linguistic capital, particularly in terms of proficiency in English. This paper reports findings of a small-scale qualitative study undertaken to understand how students at a higher education public-sector institution in Pakistan experience and construct their own and others’ identities in relation to their previous and current educational and social experiences of language learning and use. Insights gained from this study further our understanding of how linguistic inequalities can be sanctioned by the state’s language policy and related practices.

Informed by a combined framework of ‘translanguaging’ and ‘epistemic injustice’, this paper examines how a group of teachers and students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds negotiated their knowledge participation through translanguaging in an English medium instruction (EMI) degree program at a Chinese university. Data were collected over a 12-month classroom ethnography, including lesson recordings, stimulated recalls, and reflexive journals. A thematic analysis of the data reveals that transnational teachers and students actively employed translanguaging to challenge the prevailing hegemony of Western thinking and knowing in the EMI environment. We identified three key translanguaging capacities that facilitated transformative knowledge negotiation: (1) counteracting testimonial injustice; (2) providing hermeneutical resources; and (3) enhancing the sensitivity of trans-epistemic practices. Our study attests to the value of translanguaging as a transformative strategy to generate epistemic access for transnational students engaged in EMI learning, informing efforts to foster educational equity in the internationalization of higher education and to empower transnational teachers and students to reclaim their epistemic contribution capacities in the EMI context.

<b>English-medium instruction (EMI) is a global trend in higher education which coincides with the digital age. This thesis examines the uses of digital technologies in an EMI context in Vietnamese higher education. It explores how teachers and students used digital technologies and how they perceived the development of students’ learning through digital technologies in the EMI environment.</b><div><b><br></b><p>The methodological approach taken was a qualitative multiple case study underpinned by an interpretive paradigm. Each case included one subject teacher and a class of 40 to 50 students in an undergraduate economics-related courses taught in English. Data from the four cases were collected during the first year of EMI implementation, from August to December 2017 from three sources of information: teacher semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and student focus-group discussions. The data were abductively analysed following the process of constructing themes suggested by Vaismoradi et al. (2016) and adapted from the thematic analysis method of Braun and Clarke (2012). </p><p><br></p> Within this context, the teachers and students used a range of digital technologies for teaching and learning activities. The technologies included digital devices (e.g. computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets), search engines (Google, and Wikipedia), presentation tools (PowerPoint, and Prezi), organisation tools (Google drive, and Dropbox), social networks (YouTube, and Facebook), and the learning management system (LMS). The teachers used technology to address challenges they faced through EMI teaching. Their practice with technology included curating and developing materials with digital resources, presenting subject matter with multimedia and organising classes with cloud storage and the LMS for uploading materials or communicating with the students. They believed that using technology improved their students’ understanding of content knowledge, learning of English vocabulary, engagement and motivation. The students expressed confidence in using digital technologies for learning within and beyond the classroom. They reported deploying technology to search for materials, upload and download information and resources, and to organise lesson content. They proactively used technology to personalise their learning by accessing informal online activities and engaging with collective learning networks, which enabled them to collaborate and gain support for learning. The students believed that digital technologies played an integral part in enhancing their understanding of subject matter and improving their English vocabulary and skills.<div><br> <p>Teachers and students became agentic as they adapted to the new EMI context. The teachers endeavoured to adjust their teaching in response to changes including the neoliberal system in HE, the rapid technological development and practices demanded by the change of instruction language. Access to digital resources appeared to enable them to independently make pedagogical decisions and take a proactive role in EMI programmes. However, there were few substantive changes in pedagogical practice. Different influences which possibly reduced the teachers’ professional agency in completely changing pedagogy with technology included their technological, content, and pedagogical knowledge and beliefs, or conflicting influences from Confucian educational practices, belief in a teacher-centred and content-driven approach, and the exam-oriented system. The students had a strong sense of agency as proactive learners in the digital age. They were autonomous in their learning with innovative uses of technology in the EMI environment. Those uses of technology offered them collective support and facilitated them to independently cope with many changes in the EMI learning context. This raises some implications not only for institutional policy for professional development which encourages teachers’ collaboration but also for the learning support scheme and teaching practices which offer students opportunities to access collaborative support and tasks. </p><p><br></p> <p>The ROAD-MAPPING framework (Dafouz & Smit, 2020) shed light on the multifaceted nature of EMI programmes in the Vietnamese context. It highlighted the impact of glocalisation in shaping EMI policies in Vietnamese HE institutions. The introduction of EMI at the participating university was the policy makers’ response to internationalisation where global academic programmes were imported into this local context. A number of contextual factors influenced the process of EMI implementation such as the predominant role of Vietnamese as language of instruction in most academic programmes, the lack of focus on English development and requirement in EMI curriculum and language policy, the textbook-based system, and inadequate preparation for both subject teachers and students. These characteristics in the Vietnamese education context shaped EMI teaching practices in which the teachers and students focussed on disciplinary knowledge and expected English skills to follow. This suggests the synergy of ‘global’ and ‘local’ factors needs careful attention if EMI is to work in practice.</p></div></div>

English-medium instruction (EMI) is a global trend in higher education which coincides with the digital age. This thesis examines the uses of digital technologies in an EMI context in Vietnamese higher education. It explores how teachers and students used digital technologies and how they perceived the development of students’ learning through digital technologies in the EMI environment.<div><b><br></b><p>The methodological approach taken was a qualitative multiple case study underpinned by an interpretive paradigm. Each case included one subject teacher and a class of 40 to 50 students in an undergraduate economics-related courses taught in English. Data from the four cases were collected during the first year of EMI implementation, from August to December 2017 from three sources of information: teacher semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and student focus-group discussions. The data were abductively analysed following the process of constructing themes suggested by Vaismoradi et al. (2016) and adapted from the thematic analysis method of Braun and Clarke (2012). </p><p><br></p> Within this context, the teachers and students used a range of digital technologies for teaching and learning activities. The technologies included digital devices (e.g. computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets), search engines (Google, and Wikipedia), presentation tools (PowerPoint, and Prezi), organisation tools (Google drive, and Dropbox), social networks (YouTube, and Facebook), and the learning management system (LMS). The teachers used technology to address challenges they faced through EMI teaching. Their practice with technology included curating and developing materials with digital resources, presenting subject matter with multimedia and organising classes with cloud storage and the LMS for uploading materials or communicating with the students. They believed that using technology improved their students’ understanding of content knowledge, learning of English vocabulary, engagement and motivation. The students expressed confidence in using digital technologies for learning within and beyond the classroom. They reported deploying technology to search for materials, upload and download information and resources, and to organise lesson content. They proactively used technology to personalise their learning by accessing informal online activities and engaging with collective learning networks, which enabled them to collaborate and gain support for learning. The students believed that digital technologies played an integral part in enhancing their understanding of subject matter and improving their English vocabulary and skills.<div><br> <p>Teachers and students became agentic as they adapted to the new EMI context. The teachers endeavoured to adjust their teaching in response to changes including the neoliberal system in HE, the rapid technological development and practices demanded by the change of instruction language. Access to digital resources appeared to enable them to independently make pedagogical decisions and take a proactive role in EMI programmes. However, there were few substantive changes in pedagogical practice. Different influences which possibly reduced the teachers’ professional agency in completely changing pedagogy with technology included their technological, content, and pedagogical knowledge and beliefs, or conflicting influences from Confucian educational practices, belief in a teacher-centred and content-driven approach, and the exam-oriented system. The students had a strong sense of agency as proactive learners in the digital age. They were autonomous in their learning with innovative uses of technology in the EMI environment. Those uses of technology offered them collective support and facilitated them to independently cope with many changes in the EMI learning context. This raises some implications not only for institutional policy for professional development which encourages teachers’ collaboration but also for the learning support scheme and teaching practices which offer students opportunities to access collaborative support and tasks. </p><p><br></p> <p>The ROAD-MAPPING framework (Dafouz & Smit, 2020) shed light on the multifaceted nature of EMI programmes in the Vietnamese context. It highlighted the impact of glocalisation in shaping EMI policies in Vietnamese HE institutions. The introduction of EMI at the participating university was the policy makers’ response to internationalisation where global academic programmes were imported into this local context. A number of contextual factors influenced the process of EMI implementation such as the predominant role of Vietnamese as language of instruction in most academic programmes, the lack of focus on English development and requirement in EMI curriculum and language policy, the textbook-based system, and inadequate preparation for both subject teachers and students. These characteristics in the Vietnamese education context shaped EMI teaching practices in which the teachers and students focussed on disciplinary knowledge and expected English skills to follow. This suggests the synergy of ‘global’ and ‘local’ factors needs careful attention if EMI is to work in practice.</p></div></div><p></p>

ABSTRACTThis article reports on a critical qualitative case study of an EMI-based, underresourced public school in Nepal through Bourdieu’s lens of linguistic capital. As the data analysis revealed, parents, students, and teachers regarded EMI as a privileged form of linguistic capital for developing advanced English skills, enhancing educational achievements and access to higher education, and increasing the chance of upward social and economic mobility. In contrary to these rosy perceptions of EMI with overtly superficial promises, switching to EMI, without enough teacher preparation and infrastructure support in the school, had contributed to several unplanned negative outcomes, including a contested process of developing the English proficiency. Despite the school’s claim of offering EMI education, Nepali was the actual language of instruction in the school due to teachers’ lack of proficiency in English and the school’s inadequate resources and preparedness for a shift to EMI. As a result, the students developed neither the content knowledge nor English language skills. Therefore, rather than being an educational equalizer, EMI has served to (re)produce linguistic marginalization and educational inequality and injustice for children from a lower socioeconomic status. We suggest critical reflection on EMI adoption and reenvision “sustainable additive multilingualism” in such contexts (Erling et al., 2016).

The proactive approach to internationalisation of higher education in Vietnam in the last twenty years is closely related to the phenomena of using English as medium of instruction (EMI) and borrowing curriculum from foreign institutions. In both policy and practice, EMI has been simultaneously used as a key instrument and as an indicator of internationalisation of higher education. Vietnam’s language policy stresses the preservation and enrichment of Vietnamese, the national official language, and other ethnic minority languages. However, the ways in which internationalisation is constructed through the use of EMI and EMI programs are promoted as a marker of distinction in higher education and in the labour market perpetuate the sentiment that the mainstream programs delivered in Vietnamese, alongside with EMI programs within the same university, are of second order importance and have lower status. This chapter addresses the promotion of EMI in the internationalisation agenda of Vietnamese universities and its implications for local language policies. It argues for maximising the potential benefits of using EMI to enhance the quality of higher education and graduate employability while ensuring equity and equality in university contexts where both EMI and Vietnamese medium programs are offered concurrently.

English-medium instruction (EMI) has gained traction in Turkey in recent decades. However, strict English proficiency requirements at EMI universities pose a problem for many students, whose English skills are much below the level required for EMI. These challenges cause some students to drop out of EMI and lead to an elite appropriation of EMI universities, thus perpetuating already existing inequities in Turkish higher education and society at large. However, little is known about barriers to EMI education. Understanding student experiences in this pipeline is important to shed light on how EMI contributes to social inequities. This study uses a Bourdieusian framework and a phenomenological design to explore the experiences of students who dropped out of a Turkish EMI university. Data were collected through 90-minute semi-structured interviews with five former EMI students. The results indicated that while the participants leveraged several forms of capital throughout their time at the focal EMI university, the mismatch between the capital possessed by the participants and that expected and endorsed by the EMI university alienated the participants, leading them to drop out eventually. The discussion includes implications for EMI policy and suggestions for context-driven EMI implementation.

This review explores the English-medium instruction (EMI) language policy and implementation in China’s higher education (HE) system over the last two decades. It traces the rise, promotion, and "turn" of the EMI system. It points out the limitations in EMI language policies and implementation in China's conventional universities. Drawing on a research framework informed primarily by Spolsky (2004) and Liddicoat and Taylor-Leech (2015) along with empirical studies, we highlight the gaps between the national and institutional language policies, stakeholders’ language ideologies, attitudes, management, and practices. These gaps obstruct the dual pedagogical goals of teaching English and academic subjects that ostensibly underpin EMI in conventional universities. More recently, new opportunities for EMI in China's HE have been provided by joint-venture universities. We examine how these joint-venture universities developed different EMI policies and implementation strategies. Thus, we claim that a ‘binary EMI system’ is emerging in China. We conclude with concrete suggestions that stakeholders take to (better) achieve EMI’s pedagogical goals. We also recommend solutions to the current limitations of EMI and suggest directions for future research.

The adoption of English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education has gained popularity in China's tertiary education as a result of globalization. International students in Chinese universities are celebrated as part of soft power projection to extend China's global impact. Informed by Piller and Cho's concept of “Neoliberalism as language policy” (2013) and Collins' “social reproduction theory” (2009, 2012), this study attempts to explore the EMI learning experiences of a cohort of international students at a border university in China. The policy documents, in-depth interviews, classroom observation, reflective journals and online interactions converge to reveal that, international students in EMI programmes experience exclusion and inequality despite the welcoming discourses of diversity. The paper highlights the necessity to pay attention to the ways in which higher education institutions reproduce inequalities of social stratification of international students through explicit and implicit institutional practices. It is argued that EMI policy in China's peripheral regions targeting international students from less-developed countries tends to perpetuate and accentuate educational inequalities. The study sheds light on a more inclusive pedagogical approach to alleviating international students' marginalisation and educating students of diverse linguistic, cultural, socioeconomic backgrounds for global citizenship in the context of China's Belt and Road Initiative.

In this conceptual paper I examine how current understandings of English medium instruction (EMI) can be refined to inform language policy-making and practice in higher education. Starting from a set of EMI definitions (Dafouz, E., & Smit, U. 2020. ROAD-MAPPING English medium education in the internationalized university. Palgrave Macmillan; Macaro, E. 2018. English medium instruction. Oxford University Press; Pecorari, D., & Malmström, H. 2018. At the crossroads of TESOL and English medium instruction. TESOL Quarterly, 52(3), 497–515) and the language-content spectrum that was first put forward by Met (1998. Curriculum decision-making in content-based language teaching. In J. Cenoz, & F. Genesee (Eds.), Beyond bilingualism: Multilingualism and multilingual education (pp. 35–63). Multilingual Matters), I highlight how EMI has been approached in existing literature and how it may converge or diverge with other bilingual labels. Using an institutional case as an example, I argue that the conceptualisation of the language-content duality could be expanded to better reflect the different manifestations of EMI in reality, and to provide space for tracing terminological movements in the process of policy implementation. To do so, a dynamic language-content model is introduced, drawing attention to different depths of integration based on what is controlled (e.g. language and/or content) and how much control is taken (e.g. in curriculum-planning, teaching, and/or assessment). The model can be viewed as a second generation of the language-content continuum, complementing existing EMI definitions while opening up wider possibilities for dealing with the interplay between language and content in university settings. The paper closes with implications for EMI policy-making and practice.