English Medium Instruction in Higher Education: An Attempt to Understanding Teacher Identity in Malaysia and China

Abstract

Universities in Asia have observed a conspicuously large-scale adoption of English Medium Instruction (EMI), particularly in China and Malaysia. With the requirement that content teachers conduct classes in Chinese and Malaysian universities, content teachers’ identities would be reshaped into that of EMI teachers. However, the nature of policy directives concerning EMI, code-switching to mother tongue in the classrooms, the dearth of professional development programs, the intervention of local materials and instructional deficiency of the teachers, and nationalism have complicated the development of content teachers’ identity as EMI teachers. The current study aimed at understanding the identities of university teachers involved in EMI courses in Malaysian and Chinese universities. Undertaking a systematic review of the published studies concerning the EMI phenomenon in Malaysian and Chinese universities, and discussing the findings in the light of the dialogical approach proposed by Akkerman and Meijer (2011), the study reported that tensions between teachers’ identity as content teachers on one hand and as EMI teachers on other hand, offered multiple -positions (I-positions) that teachers need to interpret and evaluate through dialogues. The dialogues have continued among several I-positions. Eventually, the coherent identity of the EMI teachers developed as bilingual teachers, which has been incongruent with the policy directives. The implication of this study would help the stakeholders rethink bilingual higher education where English along with the national language would prevail to pave the way for knowledge acquisition. Moreover, the study set ground for future researchers to consider such an area for empirical exploration since teacher identity in conjunction with EMI has been relatively less explored.