To impart knowledge or to adhere to policy: Unpacking language ideologies and practices in Chinese EMI courses through a translanguaging lens

Abstract

Due to the internationalization and marketization of higher education and the increasing prevalence of English as a global language, higher education institutions worldwide have implemented English medium instruction (EMI) courses, highlighting the necessity to examine how languages are chosen and practised in EMI courses. With a mixed-method triangulation approach, this study collected data through classroom observation, questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews in order to investigate teachers’ and students’ language choices and practices in EMI classrooms at a Chinese university. The questionnaire results showed that although the respondents slightly preferred English-only practice, they found it difficult to implement it and would resort to translanguaging practices, confirming an inconsistency between language ideologies and language practices. The observation findings revealed the adoption of translanguaging for meaning comprehension, terminology explanation and translation of local elements, while interview findings revealed three types of student participants, i.e. believers, sceptics, and inbetweeners, towards translanguaging practice in EMI courses. In contrast, most of the teachers held a favourable stance towards the English-only practice in EMI courses. While the participants all regarded translanguaging practices as facilitators for language and content learning, they believed that hierarchical relationships do not exist among languages. This study carries important implications to bridge the gap between language ideologies and language practices and call for attention to developing language practice from a multilingual perspective.