Abstract
There has been a striking increase in the number of universities in the Asian Pacific region that are moving to offer courses and programmes through English as a medium on instruction. In this chapter I shall first review this increase by describing in some detail recent developments in the use of EMI in higher education in Malaysia and Myanmar. I shall then provide a brief summary of developments in EMI in selected other countries of the region. I shall critically discuss the motivations for this move to the adoption of EMI and argue that, in most cases, the move to implement EMI has been undertaken without adequate planning and without adequate preparation for teachers and students. I shall then consider the possible implications of this move to EMI for staff and students and for languages other than English. I shall conclude by proposing that universities need to embrace an inclusive language education policy in adopting EMI courses. I shall argue that EMI policy cannot be successfully adopted by considering EMI in isolation from other languages and without appropriate and adequate planning and preparation. In so doing, I raise some issues of concern with the notion of the definition of the ‘English’ in EMI and in ‘English only’ policies. Universities who have adopted EMI policies and programmes need to (i) take into account the use of English as a lingua franca and (ii) to ensure that the policies clearly identify and encourage bi/multilingualism in the university.
Keywords
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- 1.
The participating universities in the ASEAN Universities Network (AUN) are: Universiti Brunei Darussalam (Brunei Darussalam); Royal University of Phnom Penh, Royal University of Law and Economics (Cambodia); Institut Teknologi Bandung, Universitas Airlangga, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Universitas Indonesia (Indonesia); National University of Laos (Laos); Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Utara Malaysia, University of Malaya (Malaysia); Yangon Institute of Economics, University of Mandalay, University of Yangon (Myanmar); Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, University of the Philippines (Philippines); National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management University (Singapore); Burapha University, Chiang Mai University, Chulalongkorn University, Mahidol University, Prince of Songkla University (Thailand); Can Tho University, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam).
- 2.
Also referred to as Peking University.
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Kirkpatrick, A. (2017). The Languages of Higher Education in East and Southeast Asia: Will EMI Lead to Englishisation?. In: Fenton-Smith, B., Humphreys, P., Walkinshaw, I. (eds) English Medium Instruction in Higher Education in Asia-Pacific. Multilingual Education, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51976-0_2
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