English and internationalization of Korean universities

Abstract

Abstract The internationalization of higher education in South Korea has brought marked changes to the linguistic and cultural diversity of university campuses. This ethnographic case study examined language policies, language use, and intercultural interactions in two localized English-Medium-Instruction courses that incorporated both English and Korean as mediums of instruction. The results drawn from interviews with ten participants and observations of classroom interactions show that English was a primary medium for students’ academic literacy and Korean as an additional communication tool in the absence of any explicit Medium of Instruction policy. They also illustrate how the different statuses of the two languages limited students’ investment in learning Korean as a second language and created unequal intercultural interactions between speakers of different languages. The results illuminate how a neoliberal ideology adopted and enacted at a national and institutional level through internationalization translated into implicit policies and practices at different levels on campus.