From English Medium Instruction to English Medium Education: A Forward Direction for Vietnamese Universities

Abstract

This chapter brings together key themes from across the institutional, practitioner and student perspectives presented in previous chapters. We argue that their collective perspectives indicate closer alignment with the concept of English Medium Education (EME) than with the more restricted notion of instruction that is inherent in the top-down EMI concept. The chapters also demonstrate that an EME approach can help to address significant issues in the implementation of EMI programs and individual courses. We therefore further argue that a way to move forward with EMI in Vietnamese universities is to actively adopt an EME approach, both in policy and practice. Using the Dafouz and Smit (2016; 2020) ROAD-MAPPING framework for analysing EME in multilingual university settings, we bring together the various EME themes presented and advocated across the chapters. These themes, in conjunction with the principles inherent in the Dafouz and Smit’s (2020) conceptualisation of EME, provide an illustration of what an EME approach might look like in Vietnamese universities and how it could help move Vietnamese tertiary education forward in a sustainable and equity manner.