‘EMI is like a durian’: Chinese students’ perspectives on an ideal English-medium instruction classroom in higher education

Abstract

This paper reports a qualitative study of what constitutes an ideal EMI classroom from the perspective of university students. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 26 university students from various disciplines at a large public university in China. The analysis reveals three core themes, which were perceived to be integral to an ideal EMI classroom: 1) an integration between content, language, and learning strategies, 2) a process-oriented course design permeated with a translanguaging approach, and 3) moving beyond specific EMI classrooms with a future and community orientation. This paper argues that EMI needs to be approached as a full educational experience with multiple dimensions (i.e. cognitive, social, and affective), through which, students gradually build up their professional knowledge and disciplinary literacy as well as foster their sense of belonging and direction in their situated subject field.