Abstract
Emerging from the growing body of work on English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education are challenges to policy implementation, particularly when it is implemented top-down without a careful needs analysis or when it fails to address problems associated with ‘English-only’ implementation and so-called ‘native speaker’ norms. Our study responds to this need by exploring the role of English in EMI classrooms. We draw on data collected from 17 universities in Thailand and Vietnam using questionnaires with 1,377 students, 83 teachers of English for academic purposes (EAP), and 148 content teachers, as well as interviews with 35 students, 31 EAP teachers, and 28 content teachers. We also draw on data from 14 focus groups with teachers and students at seven universities in Vietnam. Findings reveal differences in attitudes amongst stakeholders and highlight that the L1 in EMI classrooms in Thailand and Vietnam, albeit used sparingly, is a useful pedagogical tool. Overall, however, participants preferred native-accented teachers with experience abroad, and English-only instruction. This study calls for more research into raising awareness of Global Englishes and translanguaging practices to challenge such attitudes, university language policies, and teacher recruitment practices that seem to reflect native-speakerism and discourage bilingual instruction or L1 use in EMI classes.
Highlights
With internationalization high on the agenda for universities around the world, we have witnessed an unprecedented growth in the teaching of academic subjects through English
While English Medium Instruction (EMI) is only one part of the overall internationalization agenda, it has become a key priority in many contexts, often fueled by government policies
Our study focuses on Thailand and Vietnam, where neoliberalist internationalization agendas have resulted in wide expansion of EMI provision without developing context-appropriate quality assurance systems (Mohamad Uri and Abd Aziz, 2018; Tran and Nguyen, 2018), and nativespeakerism continues to dominate (Boonsuk, Ambele and McKinley, 2021)
Summary
With internationalization high on the agenda for universities around the world (see Tight, 2021), we have witnessed an unprecedented growth in the teaching of academic subjects through English. While English Medium Instruction (EMI) is only one part of the overall internationalization agenda (see Gray et al, 2018, for a discussion of neoliberalism and English as a global industry), it has become a key priority in many contexts, often fueled by government policies. There are numerous driving forces behind the global spread of EMI (Galloway et al, 2020; Rose et al, 2020), but in many contexts such as Vietnam and Thailand, EMI is closely linked with top-down policy to improve the English proficiency of university graduates in line with a neoliberalist agenda to (theoretically) meet modernization and economic development goals. Discussions surrounding the irrelevance of ELT curricula and the dominance of ‘native speaker’ ideology continue to gather momentum in the growing field of Global Englishes (Rose, McKinley, and Galloway, 2021), yet “national education systems across the world excessively valorize English, and... In a systematic review of EMI research, Macaro et al (2017, p. 38) highlighted this as a key area in need of examination, yet it has scarcely been explored within the field of EMI
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