Keywords

1.1 Introduction

Teaching through English [as the] Medium of Instruction (EMI) has arisen in unison with the emergent internationalization of education within the current global economy. It continues to trend upwards and has secured a strong foothold in higher education systems where English is not the vernacular. It has been implemented at many universities worldwide, particularly in those countries described by Kachru (1985) as being in the Outer or Expanding Circles, in terms of the spread of English across the globe. The motives, or a country’s strategic agenda, for establishing EMI programs are dynamic but mostly driven by economic and political forces as universities respond to increasing competition over global resources (Wilkinson, 2012, p. 11) and in the context where global careers operate almost completely in English. The bourgeoning of EMI teaching in European and Asian higher education systems, that is, countries in the Expanding Circle where English is a foreign language, has been observed as escalating EMI’s position as a new ‘colonial frontier’ (Doiz et al., 2012 p. xvii). As such, EMI is continually marketed and uncritically promoted and accepted by policy makers in these regions in spite of contestations, for example, that educators and learners respond more creatively and critically when thinking in their first language (Phillipson, 2017).

EMI programs are touted as an innovation of content and language integrated teaching (Brüning & Purrmann, 2014; Coyle et al., 2010). Europe’s EMI teaching is currently presented as a best-practice scenario although evidence of consistent achievement across countries is lacking. It has been described as a strategic move to internationalize the curriculum and accreditation in the European Union’s (EU) higher education (Costa & Coleman, 2013; Macaro & Akincioglu, 2018; Werther et al., 2014). In Europe, EMI teaching dates back to the 1990’s as evidenced in the Bologna Declaration (1999), which proposed objectives for tertiary education reform. The implementation of EMI programs largely reflects a country’s economic and educational status, depending on whether it has sufficient resources to attract overseas students into its higher education space. In this regard, Western and Northern Europe countries have demonstrated advantages (De Wit et al., 2015).

For various reasons, some Asian countries and regions are moving swiftly toward EMI delivery in their higher education sectors. The Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE) prioritized EMI teaching into higher education policy as a direct implementation of the country’s strategic plan: to develop First Class World Universities, First Class Academic Discipline Development, and to achieve the gold standard destination for international students (Ren, 2016). In Taiwan, to address declining enrolments in its higher education sector, EMI teaching has been introduced and promoted as a ‘national movement’ – a concerted effort to attract international students (Chen & Tsai, 2012, p. 195; Huang & Singh, 2014). Korea, Vietnam and other East and Southeast Asian countries are expanding their international reach increasing the demand for a skilled labor force with high English proficiency in business processes and content (Kim et al., 2017a, b; Lee & Lee, 2018; MOET, 2008). This drives their higher education sectors to improve the quality of graduates through EMI programs.

EMI is widely accepted as using English to teach academic subjects in an English as a foreign language context (Dearden, 2014). It seems irrelevant to Inner Circle countries where English is the first language (Kachru, 1985). Rather, it arises as serious ‘business’ for those countries in the Expanding and Outer Circles reflecting their commitment to a neoliberal economy. EMI can therefore be considered a sign of the deepening entrenchment of English colonization around the world. Countries such as the U.S.A., the U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand in the Inner Circle continuingly enjoy the profit and convenience of having English as the/a national language and the hegemonic position this enables. The hegemonic position of English also benefits countries such as Singapore, India and Malaysia, in the Outer Circle. The long history of English colonization enabled these former colonies to provide education through EMI across all sectors (Phillipson, 2017). Their position in the global marketplace is therefore more favourable in attracting international students, compared to those in the Expanding Circle in terms of visibility, the competition for talented students, and graduate employability world-wide.

For academics and students in Northern Europe, EMI teaching has the advantage of linking to their first language (L1), in that there is a genetic link (Ersheidat & Tahir, 2020) with both language systems being alphabetic. In contrast, most Asian languages (Expanding Circle countries) are genetically and linguistically distant from English (Arabaski & Wojtaszek, 2015) thus teaching through EMI for academic staff in this context can be very challenging. Most have no experience of EMI in their own education and rarely have received upskilling through professional learning to teach subject knowledge through EMI (Phan, 2022). Nevertheless, proponents of neoliberalism, view English Medium Instruction as a strategy to expand academics’ and universities’ repertoires (Dimova et al. 2015) and will aid the “linguistic capital accumulation” of learners (Phillipson, 2017, p. 323). This view is countered by scholars such as Bunce et al. (2016), promoting overwhelming benefits to the scientific principles of ‘mother-tongue’ based multilingual education (Bunce et al., 2016). However, active neoliberal policies in some universities have largely contributed to the development of their EMI programs. For example some Scandinavian and East Asian universities offer additional remuneration and incentives such as overseas trips to academics who teach and publish in English (Phillipson, 2018; Quan et al., 2017; Rose et al., 2020).

1.2 Research into English Medium Instruction

Research on EMI teaching in the last 30 years has progressed across the field, yet a major focus continues to be problem identification. Consistently reported have been three main trends or problem areas: English language issues; pedagogical and professional learning issues; and stakeholders’ opinions of EMI teaching in general. The propensity of this type of research suggests a saturation point has been reached and the need for a new vision is required – that of, problem solving (Macaro & Akincioglu, 2018).

The strand of research that focuses on general English usage tends to treat EMI as comparable to EFL or ESL (Björkman, 2016). At the level of the individual, English proficiency or lack thereof, is reported as the key challenge for EMI teaching (Ament & Pérez-Vidal, 2015; Basturkmen, 2018; Doiz & Lasagabaster, 2018; Jenkins, 2018; Jiang et al., 2019; Kumiko, 2018). Institutionally, universities were criticized as lacking suitable criteria and training when or after recruiting EMI lecturers and especially not implementing standardized English benchmark testing as a pre-requisite (Goodman et al., 2022; Lasagabaster, 2018). This is despite the contention that lecturers who were believed to have good oral English were assigned to teach in EMI programs (Dearden, 2014). In addition, EMI professional learning for academics was often facilitated by language experts from within Linguistics/Language Centers rather than drawing on the expertise of education faculties (Mancho-Barés & Arnó-Macià, 2017; Wilkinson & Zegers, 2008). Further the content of EMI training was identified as short courses based on ‘general English proficiency’, ‘academic English’, or ‘English for teaching’ (Mancho-Barés & Arnó-Macià 2017). At the individual level, when seeking professional development, EMI lecturers tended to also narrow their focus to English language proficiency. Studies have reported that English is the main concern of EMI lecturers who often criticized their own English as being non-colloquial and ‘accented’ and exemplifying poor communication skills (Dalton-Puffer, 2013; Gustafson, 2018; He & Chiang, 2016; Tsou & Kao, 2017). These concerns and/or efforts demonstrate a reductive approach to EMI from not only an institutional viewpoint but also from EMI professionals.

Along with English-focused research, earlier scholars promote an anti-neoliberal view and critique the intrinsic English hegemonic operation within EMI programs (de Cillia & Schweiger, 2001; Ljosland, 2014; Mortensen, 2014; Mühleisen, 2003; Phillipson, 2006). Since then Björkman (2016, p. 57) challenged the findings of these studies as being uncritical contending “they are more investigatory in general” rather than offering specific insight. To further Bjorkman’s (2016) argument, consideration could be given to addressing how EMI lecturers’ bilingual repertoires can be developed to strengthen their EMI teaching. More recently, research has reported the role of lecturers’ L1 within their EMI teaching (Lin & Lo, 2017; Muguruza et al., 2020; Sah & Li, 2022; Tai & Li, 2021). This has somewhat broken the silences around actual translanguaging practices situated within “English” Medium of Instruction. It challenges the status quo’s taken-for-granted choice of EMI teaching – designed to assert a monolingual set of priorities. This research has been noteworthy given the majority of EMI lecturers, if not all, are bilingual (or multilingual), and English is not insulated from their L1. In cognitive practice bilinguals or multilinguals naturally activate their repertoire of background language/s when using English (Gunnarsson et al., 2015, p. 16). English is the ‘official’ instructional language in EMI teaching, but EMI teachers’ bi/multilingual reality implies that cross-linguistic transfer and translanguaging is a significant phenomenon in EMI classrooms. This is confirmed in the report by Rose et al. (2020, p. 14), who found, “in practice, students and teachers report multilingualism and bilingualism as normal practice in EMI classrooms”.

Researchers have called for pedagogical training as a solution to the problem of improving the success of EMI teaching and learning (Ismailov et al., 2021; Macaro & Akincioglu, 2018), signalling that lecturers’ pedagogy needs improvement. Literature reports that a number of universities offering EMI programs admitted they did not provide pedagogical training to EMI lecturers (Dearden, 2015; O’Dowd, 2018). As Alhassan (2021) reports, “…little research thus far seems to have focused on EMI subject teacher challenges and training needs”. In addition, an international survey, completed by a number of universities globally found that pedagogy for EMI teaching was “far from being treated as an important issue” and there was not “sufficient attention to the training and accreditation of the teachers [or lecturers] engaged in EMI” (O’Dowd, 2018, p. 557). Under the related category of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), there are some published discussions on promoting a ‘dual focus on language and content learning’, leading to a belief that EMI or CLIL methodology can increase lecturers’ awareness of how language may affect the construction of disciplinary understanding (Kampen et al., 2018; Mancho-Barés & Arnó-Macià, 2017). Others argue that lecturers should focus on content and tolerate some deviation from the standard usage of the teaching language (González Ardeo, 2013; Wilson & Devereux, 2014). These propositions are articulating a way forward in the development of useful CLIL or EMI pedagogies.

Other studies report the provision of professional learning for EMI lecturers (Cots, 2012; O’Dowd, 2018; Shohamy, 2012). According to these reports, some training is often not needs-based but rather concessions to convenience. For example, Wächter and Maiworm (2014) reported a study with the single focus to improve EMI lecturers’ English. Macaro, et al. (2018) conducted a systematic review of EMI teaching and concluded that professional learning often did not include any reflection or critique of existing EMI teaching pedagogies as a starting point to improve practice. For example, one EMI training program reported, involved participating lecturers presenting their teaching, supplemented by evaluation and feedback from peers. This training program was regarded as successful because the focus was for lecturers to reflect on their own teaching practice (Macaro & Akincioglu, 2018). No evidence was provided on how EMI lecturers could transform these reflections to inform the development of their EMI teaching repertoires. The review indicates that there is a notable absence of evidence-based training programs. Further there is little scientifically recorded observation-based classroom data to inform the EMI lecturers’ professional development.

In addition to English proficiency, and pedagogical problems and professional learning challenges (Alhassen, 2021), there is a body of literature reporting research ‘about’ EMI from the perspective of stakeholders. This includes EMI lecturers’ and/or students’ perceptions and beliefs about EMI in teaching and learning (Dearden & Macaro, 2016; Kling, 2013; Kuteeva & Airey, 2014); lecturers and/or students’ attitudes towards EMI programs (Arnó-Macià & Mancho-Barés, 2015; Dearden, 2014; Dearden & Macaro, 2016); universities’ opinions on the usefulness of EMI training (O’Dowd, 2018); national, institutional and personal thoughts about EMI (Hu & Lei, 2014a, b) and students’ expectations of learning through EMI classes (Kim, 2011). Whilst acknowledging investigations into beliefs, perceptions and attitudes associated with EMI contributes to a better understanding of the complexity of EMI teaching, for EMI research to move forward, retrospective participant accounts have their limitations. Chen et al. (2020) and Macaro et al. (2018) have argued that EMI research should assign attention to actual pedagogical practices in EMI classrooms by including participation by the researcher/s.

1.3 The Context of EMI Teaching and Research in China

In China, EMI has had a relatively short history commencing some two decades previous (Xu, 2021), followed by a series of policy initiatives (Rose et al., 2020). In 2001 the then Prime Minister Zhu Rongji proposed the implementation of EMI as a cross-curricula innovation to raise China’s capability for knowledge exchange with the world (Chen & Yu, 2018). In 2010, the China State Council promulgated the Outline of the National Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development Plan (2010–2020), proposing to draw on current international education ideologies and practices for China’s educational reform and development. In response, EMI teaching as an important teaching mode was introduced (Gu et al., 2020). The Ministry of Education of China echoed this by affirming that EMI courses can enhance the international employability of local graduates, attract overseas students to study in China and improve the competitiveness of China’s higher education globally (Hu & Lei, 2014a, b; Liu, 2020). In this context it was recommended that a university should have 5–10% of undergraduate courses taught in English (Hu & Lei, 2014a, b).

In 2015, the China State Council disseminated the General Plan for Coordinating the Construction of World-Class Universities and First-Class Disciplines, a program for the construction of ‘double first-class’ universities, aiming to reach international standards for first class universities and first-class disciplines (Rose et al., 2020). A recent report commissioned by the British Council in China in collaboration with the EMI Oxford Research Group (Rose et al., 2020, p. 5) referred to the ongoing “Double First Class” program stating its goal is to “…make China an international HE power by the middle of the 21st century”. In the wake of these reforms constructing relevant courses to be taught via EMI was again emphasized (Hu, 2021; Pei, 2019). However, during the first decade to 2010, EMI teaching was, in the majority, applied in departments of foreign languages education with limited offering in other humanities and social science courses as Hu (2015, p. 55) noted: “There were basically no reports on the applicability of this model to science and engineering students”.

The decade since witnessed a steady increase in the number of EMI courses implemented in Chinese universities (Wen, 2020). A study by Mohrmank (2014) identified that the East China Normal University, one of the pioneers of EMI teaching in China, had established the goals of enrolling 5000 international students and 10% of its courses to be offered through EMI. Whilst, “In policy, EMI courses are reported to cultivate student talents, respond to globalisation, promote internationalisation and improve the quality of teaching” (Rose et al., 2020), in practice, many EMI courses in China’s higher education institutions are facing difficulties. Research by Xu (2020), reported that the EMI lecturers highlighted their lack of language proficiency and pedagogical expertise as challenges in their EMI teaching. Very little empirical research was identified which explored EMI teaching methods or strategies in the context of course and content development and less have reported actual EMI lecture implementation and current EMI teaching methods in practice (Duan, 2017; Jiang et al., 2019; Lin, 2021).

On reviewing the research literature on EMI, gaps have appeared in the overall research agenda. Firstly, and most importantly the domain of EMI is not clarified. Descriptions of EMI abound, but its boundary is yet to be defined. What does English, Medium or Instruction comprise? Whose English is it in the EMI? How is ‘English’ in EMI different from that in EFL, ESL or ESP? That these fundamental questions are not asked nor answered leaves EMI teaching and research in a somewhat shambolic state; it leaves knowledge generation of EMI teaching blurry, superficial, convenient and unsystematic. Secondly, epistemological understanding of knowledge construction, of the nature of the knowledge obtainable through research, and the relationship between a researcher and the researched people is yet to be unearthed in the literature reviewed. In conducting research into EMI teaching, it is important to understand and assess the phenomenon through the participants’ recollections, description and interpretation in addition to that of the researcher’s (Creswell & Clark, 2017) – not in place of the researcher’s participation. Whilst it may be convenient to rely on surveys or interviews foregrounding the participants’ opinions, attitudes or beliefs, exploring the underlying components of the ‘how or what’ of EMI is equally, if not, more important. Implementing a research method which includes researchers’ participation will secure an intellectual space, informed by their theories, hypotheses, background knowledge and values in knowledge construction. Alhassen (2021, p. 3) supports this argument espousing the benefit of including researcher observations in order to “complement and validate … data”. This methodology has been underdeveloped or under reported in the current literature. This book reveals the critical importance of responding to EMI teaching in a context where English hegemony and colonization are becoming more entrenched, and the prevailing research methodology is lagging behind.

1.4 The Research Supporting This Book

The research informing this book enlisted a qualitative paradigm to investigate the practices of a cohort of EMI lecturers in a university in Southern China which is actively pursuing an agenda of internationalization. At the time this research was undertaken (2019), more than 10% of student enrolments were from abroad including overseas students with Chinese backgrounds, and 8% of the teaching staff were registered as lecturers of EMI programs across a range of disciplines including Biochemistry, Global Studies, Engineering, Physics, Mathematics, Medical Science, Marketing, Computer Science and Metaphysics. A “single setting case study with multiple sub-cases” (Diop & Liu, 2020, p. 1) was chosen as the most appropriate research design in order to acquire an in-depth understanding of these EMI lecturers’ practices within their discipline areas. Whilst locating this research in a single ‘real-life’ context could be regarded as a limitation in terms of the amount of data collected and generalizability of results, the intention of this research is to provide evidence-based insight to advance the future development and design of contextualized EMI programs. The focus is on the pedagogical issues raised by the EMI lecturers as participants in this complex teaching and learning context, supplemented by the researcher’s observations of their EMI, and to a lesser extent, their Chinese Medium Instruction (CMI) teaching. This research is neither an investigation into student attitudes, nor an evaluation of the success or otherwise of the EMI programs in terms of student learning outcomes. The student focus is beyond the scope of this research and its intention to identify evidence-based EMI teaching practice by (1) exploring the pedagogical and instructional characteristics of Chinese background EMI lecturers’, (2) identifying teaching strategies implemented (if there were some) to enhance student interaction and engagement, and (3) uncovering examples of linguistic repertoires to provide evidence of how their L1 (Chinese) impacts on their L2 (English) use and how translanguaging practice unfolds in this EMI space.

1.4.1 Data Collection

Data were collected over a three-month period and included a qualitative survey, the researcher’s observations of the EMI lecturers’ practices followed by a stimulated recall (interview), where the participating lecturers were able to discuss issues identified during the lecture observations. Sixty-nine EMI academic staff including professors, associate professors and lecturers completed the survey; 19 of these further accepted the invitation for the researcher to observe their lectures and to participate in a stimulated recall interview. In parallel with their EMI teaching, some of the lecturers offered the same EMI units via Chinese Medium Instruction (CMI) and permission was given from three of the 19 for the researcher to observe their CMI classes. This enabled a reference point when addressing the impact of languages (L1 and L2) on their teaching. The combination of observation and stimulated recall intreviews balanced the participants’ and the researcher’s contribution to the research. This dual approach allowed “objective tests” as well as “self-reports” (Macaro & Akincioglu, 2018, p. 64). The data collection protocol is represented in the Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Summary of data collection protocol
Full size table

1.5 Book Structure

This book is structured into eight chapters. Chapter 2 addresses the complexities of EMI and deconstructs the individual E, M and I to ascertain how each contributes to the understanding and conceptualization of the term. It questions and navigates the ‘English’ from a multilingualism view by proposing that the ‘English’ of EMI occurs in bilingual or multilingual contexts and is therefore beyond the entitlements of authenticity and nativism that monolingualism claims. The conceptualization continues by exploring ‘Medium’ in relation to discourse and how Medium influences and is influenced by the aspects of mode, field and tenor when situated in a particular social and cultural context. This Chapter further conceptualizes ‘Instruction’ from the standpoints of pedagogy and teaching and learning theories. It contends ‘Instruction’ represents a set of practical principles based on individual educators’ pedagogical positions with reference to and addressing learners’ prior knowledge, cognitive need and motivation.

Chapter 3 examines the EMI lecturers’ pedagogical alignment and instructional practices. It counters a predominance in the current literature highlighting EMI research on language with less concern on pedagogy, suggesting educators of Confucius heritage tend to implement expository rather than constructivist teaching methods. This Chapter provides an in-depth exposé into the Chinese EMI lecturers’ actual classroom teaching and how their individual pedagogical stance has influenced their everyday practice. An exploration of the following questions guides the discussion of the research findings: Do these lecturers who are from the same cultural and educational system share similar pedagogical views and instructional practices? Is the subject area of teaching an impact factor in terms of the lecturers’ tendencies or preferences to implement one pedagogy over another? (For example, do lecturers teaching in STEM areas tend to share similar instructional principles compared to those in the humanities, social sciences and education?)

Chapter 4 drills beneath the macro level of pedagogical and instructional analysis, to an investigation of the Chinese EMI lecturers’ strategies for engaging students in their EMI programs. Literature reports quality engagement is a key for successful learning, however when lecturers or teachers conduct teaching in English (their second or foreign language), there is often a shortfall in those teachers’ repertoire of engagement strategies. The purpose of this Chapter is to examine the Chinese EMI lecturers’ engagement portfolio, to respond to two concerns raised in the literature through the questions: Do these EMI lecturers have discernible engagement and interactive activities with students in EMI classes which differ from their CMI strategies? and Is the English as the instructional language, or their pedagogical ideology accountable for any difference? This Chapter is not aspiring to measure the effectiveness that engagement has brought to learning, but rather to capture the characteristics of engagement strategies demonstrated by the EMI lecturers.

Chapter 5 examines the EMI lecturers’ instructional language from a psycholinguistic perspective. Data reveal that L1 influence plays a positive, functional role in terms of facilitating EMI lecturers’ teaching and students’ learning. Theoretically, this Chapter moves beyond a structuralist view of judging language transfer as right or wrong, correct or incorrect, perfect or deficit. It operationalizes a post-structuralist perception by proposing ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit’ transfer and acknowledges L1-influenced EMI lecturers’ English, as a temporary form of languaging within the translaguaging process.

Chapter 6 centres on the observed instances of the EMI lecturers implementing pragmatic strategies. Effective use of pragmatic strategies provides various types of signposts directing students to logically capture the direction, the transition, the sequence and the comparison in the instruction. This strategy has the potential to challenge the limitation created by ‘imperfect’ English. This Chapter also focuses on an analysis of the EMI lecturers’ use of pragmatic markers (PMs) in their teaching. Acknowledging there were some individual differences, a trend in PM use and the degree of pragmatic transfer revealed in this group’s teaching was identified. This prevailing trend can be explained with respect to the EMI lecturers’ pedagogical ideology and practice, culturally influenced teacher-student relationships, the EMI subject matter, and the lecturers’ language cognition as L2 (English) speakers.

Chapter 7 investigates the Chinese EMI lecturers’ position and practice as bilingual educators through a post-structuralist, translanguaging frame of reference. Literature unanimously indicates that translanguaging practices can positively scaffold and facilitate students’ learning. This Chapter is prompted by the questions: How is translanguaging practiced in these lecturers’ EMI teaching? and How does translanguaging practice reflect their language ideology and identity? Through an analysis of observation and stimulated recall data, this Chapter concludes that the prestigious status of the English language has not been challenged by these EMI lecturers; translanguaging as an advanced concept is yet to be ideologically accepted by the majority of these bilingual professionals; and whist translanguaging appears in some EMI lecturers’ practices it was not necessarily fully and positively embraced.

Chapter 8 revisits and recounts the current EMI research literature exposing some major challenges with its trajectory in the field. It reflects on the design of this research, which endeavoured to empower the researcher’s role, as a knowledge co-constructor with participants’ whilst providing a voice for their understandings of the issues in their own EMI teaching and EMI in general. Finally, this Chapter proposes and shares a framework (Constructivist EMI Teaching Framework) developed in response to insights gleaned from this research and my many years of EMI training experience. This Framework is offered with a hope that it can be a working model for consideration by other EMI educators who aspire to a student-centered, constructivist pedagogy when delivering courses and/or training programs through EMI.