Julie Dearden

3.1 The preliminary study

3.2 The 55 countries study

Processing closed questions

3.3 Methodological challenges posed
by this study

4.1 The growth of EMI as a
global phenomenon

4.2 Official policies and statements on EMI

Hungary:

Malaysia:

Japan:

Macedonia:

Czech Republic:

Hong Kong:

South Sudan:

Indonesia:

Netherlands:

India:

Uganda:

Cyprus:

Bahrain:

A comparative case study: EMI in Turkey
and Kazakhstan

Turkey:

Kazakhstan:

4.3 Different national perspectives on EMI

Uzbekistan:

Croatia:

Bangladesh:

Portugal:

Netherlands:

Taiwan:

Sri Lanka:

Case study: Hong Kong

4.4 Public opinion on EMI

Hungary:

Spain:

Venezuela:

Hong Kong:

India:

Germany:

Bosnia and Herzegovina:

Azerbaijan:

Colombia:

Czech Republic:

Mauritius:

India:

Serbia:

Switzerland:

Spain:

Malaysia:

Brazil:

Qatar:

South Sudan:

Argentina:

Ghana:

4.5. Teaching and learning through EMI

4.5.1 EMI teacher qualifications

4.5.3 Subjects taught and subjects
examined through EMI

4.5.4 Age of EMI introduction
Traditionally, students have learnt English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at school, in other words English as a subject in its own right. A question to be asked therefore would be at what point, if at all, should EMI take over from EFL? At university level, in our preliminary study, teachers knew vaguely what level of English their students needed in order to follow a course in EMI at university, although expressing this varied from ‘quite good’ to quoting the Common European Framework B2 (CEF). Policies around the world vary enormously. The examples below illustrate the diversity of practice in this area. In Italy in 2010, legislation regarding content and language integrated learning (CLIL) methodology (DD.PP.RR. 87, 88, 89 15/03/2010) was introduced in the last year of higher secondary education (starting in language schools from the third year). In the Netherlands the starting point for all phases of formal education is Dutch. However, government policy is in place with regards to English as a subject in primary education. Policy concerning EMI (especially Early English and bilingual education) is currently in the making. Government policy with regards to EMI in secondary mostly focuses on bilingual schools. In tertiary education, there is a policy in place that allows instruction in other languages if: 1) the language in question is the object of study; 2) there are guest lecturers whose first language is not Dutch; 3) it is necessary due to the specific nature of the subject, for the quality of the education or the background of the students. In Pakistan, science and mathematics education through EMI should take place at Class IV onwards. This is still at primary school, which consists of five classes, I-V, and enrols children age five–nine years. It is also possible to teach Science and Maths in Urdu for the first five years; but after that, the statement is clear: both should be taught in English only. In Ethiopia, English is the medium of instruction at secondary school and at university, whilst the policy from 1994 states that English is taught as a foreign language from year 1 of primary school. In Sri Lanka, ten subjects can be taught in English; and if a school wishes, it can teach more subjects through EMI but no teaching resources will be supplied. In Nepal, the Nepali language or English language or both can be used. In Hungary the Education Act of 1985 made it possible to carry out education in a language other than Hungarian. Secondary CLIL (1985) was a Ministry initiated, top-down innovation. From 2004 all secondary schools were allowed to initiate a special extra preparatory year for students, with an intensive language development programme. In 2004, 407 schools were implementing the extra preparatory year. In higher education, CLIL, which may well mean EMI in this context, is also allowed, and encouraged to a certain extent. In 1997 the Ministry of Education declared some guiding principles for all schools where education is carried out in a language different from Hungarian: these were aimed at CLIL schools: ◾ an adequate number of lessons must be devoted to language development ◾ CLIL schools have to adopt a specific language syllabus ■■ the civilization of the target language countries must be taught ■■ three or more subjects must be taught in the target language ■ the target language must be present in 35–50 per cent of the students' time-table ■■ the school must employ at least one teacher whose native language is the target language of the programme. Schools working under the above conditions are entitled to receive additional per capita financial support from the educational budget. 4.5.5 Levels of English for EMI teachers Respondents reported that most teachers who were expected to teach through EMI were not native speakers of English, and it is as yet unclear what the requirements are with regard to English language competence. In the preliminary research, teachers found it difficult to answer the question on what level a teacher should have before teaching through EMI and how teachers should reach an appropriate level of English. Phew, wow, I’m not sure what level the teacher needs, erm, it's not necessary that the teacher needs a higher level than the students. Pof...Good question.. I don't know actually ... at least you have to be able to understand the questions of the students. I think for technical disciplines we don't need very deep knowledge of the language. The vocabulary is 400 or 500 words. Teachers in the preliminary study and respondents in the 55 Countries study were unaware of a language level, test or qualification for EMI teachers. They had been nominated to teach through EMI because they had been abroad, spoke well or had volunteered. Teachers would welcome a standard level of proficiency in English for EMI. Professors and staff not fluent in English are sometimes expected to gain proficiency by taking weekly English classes. Whether or not this is sufficient training to enable teachers to be able to work in English is open to debate. In most countries there is currently no standardised English benchmark test for subject teachers teaching through EMI. As one teacher in the preliminary study remarked: We intentionally left out a standard as requirement as it’s difficult enough to encourage faculty to teach in English. Sometimes the level of English was thought to be very basic, and inadequate for teaching an academic subject. Indonesia: A study by MoEC on English language competences of teachers and principals in 549 international standard schools in 2009 found that the overall picture is of a teacher workforce which is not ready to function in English and where more than half of all teachers possess a level of ‘novice’, that is, a competence which is even lower than 'elementary'. In Ethiopia, teachers were considered to be qualified if they were university or college graduates, but the low level of English proficiency was a problem.
Ethiopia:
The public wants their children to learn in English (more) than in any other language but educated parents feel that the teachers' proficiency level is very low and usually complain of not having competent teachers in public schools. Bahrain: Most of them are expatriates and work in private schools and universities. India: EMI is not a priority at Teacher Education level where it comes to state funded education. In private education, this is a huge concern for the low cost sector, but in elite, urban schools, this is not an issue as they have access to teachers with C1 to C2 levels of English for reasons of class and economic background. In many countries there was a generation gap. Younger teachers were more likely to speak English, while it was thought that older, more experienced subject teachers were struggling to teach through EMI. These quotes from respondents illustrate the issues:
Pakistan:
There is a dearth of qualified respondents to cover the need especially at primary and secondary level and more in public sector. Primary and secondary school teachers across Pakistan are not fully qualified to use English as a Medium of Instruction. The British Council tested the English language skills of 2008 primary and middle school teachers in public and private schools in 18 districts of Punjab using the British Council's Aptis language testing system. According to the findings: 1. 62 per cent of private school teachers and 56 per cent of government school teachers registered scores in the lowest possible band in the Aptis test, meaning they lack even basic knowledge of English, including the ability to understand and use familiar everyday expressions and simple phrases. 2. Most of the remaining teachers received scores that placed them in beginners' level. 3. Even in EMI schools, 44 per cent of teachers scored in the bottom Aptis band. In all, 94 per cent of teachers in EMI schools have only pre-intermediate level of English or lower. 4. Younger teachers had a much higher level of English than older colleagues. 24 per cent of teachers aged 21–35 scored in the pre- intermediate and intermediate categories, compared with just seven per cent of those aged 51 and over.
4.5.6 The changing role of the teacher
Another issue is the changing role of the teacher in an EMI context. EMI teachers in the preliminary study firmly believed that teaching English was not their job. They did not consider themselves responsible for their students’ level of English. They did not see themselves as language teachers in any way. University teachers definitely thought that EMI was beneficial to students and more specifically, that students made progress in English when they studied through EMI. Teachers felt that the students would improve their English by being exposed to it, by having to express themselves and by reading and writing: For sure yes, they will be exposed to more input, relevant input. Yes because they are forced to communicate with me in English and forced to think in English. I’m sure they will improve because they have to express themselves and collect the vocabulary to express and for their writing. It was thought that improvement in English proficiency would happen as a by-product of the content lessons and most interviewees in the preliminary study firmly believed that students were responsible for their own progress. We may ask how students are supposed to understand lectures and classes if the EMI teacher does not help with their knowledge of English by paraphrasing, by teaching subject-specific vocabulary and technical terms. I’m not interested in their English, I’m interested in their comprehension of micro-biogenetics errr I don't think so, I'm not going to improve (their) English. I’m going to transfer basic knowledge, try to communicate in a correct way but I’m not going to correct or teach them English. If subject teachers do not consider it their job to improve the students’ English, whose job is it? This raises the question of what sort of teachers are required to teach an academic subject through EMI? Clearly these attitudes are what separates EMI from CLIL where the notion of furthering language competence is built into the acronym. It would be useful to consider what English language provision will be in the future and who will be delivering it; some thoughts on this are offered in the concluding section.
4.6 Internationalising higher education
One of the main aims of policy makers, teachers, parents and students in implementing EMI is to internationalise the education on offer in their country, particularly in the higher education phase. The very notion of ‘internationalisation of universities’ is a contested one. Internationalising a university can be conceived in the narrow sense of attracting and admitting foreign students. It may additionally be conceived as attracting and employing international faculty. However internationalisation can mean much more than this. It may be that a university strives to prepare its home students for an international world and in order to do this the very nature of a university located in a single geographical space begins to be challenged. In the study 72 per cent of respondents answered that in their country universities admitted international students. However, in many cases the numbers were said to be not substantial or even negligible. Figure 9: Percentage of 55 countries who have international students In this rush to internationalise, there may be variability in the quality of student experience for an international student. Are international students receiving the same content as home students? Quotes from teachers in the preliminary study suggest not: They end up being taught individually as the main course is taught in L1. A special course for foreigners. Some of these teachers claimed that older university teachers might hand over their teaching to younger teachers if it had to be done through EMI, as they felt incapable of delivering lectures in English. We are lucky because we have two PhD students from India so they speak very well English and they have given the seminars, we give them the literature and the papers. The speed at which universities are internationalising and English is being used as the academic lingua franca is accelerating. Ironically, EMI means that learning in English no longer means going to a UK or US university. In Europe for example, the number of courses taught in English is increasing rapidly due to the Bologna process and these courses attract international students from around the world. In South Africa, the respondent reported that 7.25 per cent of university students were non-South African, with the majority (46,496) coming from Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries: Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique and Angola, Zimbabwe and Zambia, whilst the next largest group (10,986) came from the rest of the world, notably from the USA (7,302). Universities are becoming increasingly international in the sense that their campuses are also becoming global. South Sudan for example is working with universities in the USA to train agriculture specialists and New York University has bases in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America. This new sort of global university with partnerships and campuses around the world, is facilitated by EMI. Case study: Taiwan According to our respondents in Taiwan: The Ministry of Education (MoE) of Taiwan is encouraging universities to establish an international environment, including internationalised campuses, curricula and administration systems, and to promote global cooperation and exchanges. The official language of instruction in the country is Mandarin Chinese. The Ministry of Education is encouraging EMI at university level. There are 60 public universities and 100 private universities in Taiwan and EMI is an important benchmark to internationalise a university, improve its international competitiveness and attract international students. The MoE provides incentives to HE academics who lecture in English e.g. an EMI lecturer may have a Teaching Assistant assigned to help students understand the course content and receive sponsorship for overseas training.
Taiwan:
Foreign students are the bridge of international friendship. The number of foreign students is not only a key indicator of a nation's educational internationalization and competitiveness, but also the characteristic of the nation's national appeal and international influence. Therefore, the more advanced the nation, the more foreign students it has and the more efforts it has made to attract foreign students. There is more EMI at university level than in schools. In tertiary education, the courses that are most likely to be taught in English are at master and doctoral degree level: English, Commerce, Engineering, MBA and IMBA. According to the 2007 statistics of the MoE, there were 2651 primary schools, 740 junior high schools, 320 senior high schools, and 156 vocational high schools. EMI is allowed by the central and local governments in all stages of education in private and state schools. In state primary and secondary schools, only Mandarin as a subject and a few dialects cannot be taught in English. However, even though the ideal is for English (as a subject) classes to be taught in English as much as possible, most English classes are still said to be delivered in Mandarin. In state primary and secondary schools, a proportion of native English-speaking teachers are hired to teach English. In private primary and secondary schools, native English-speaking teachers teach all kinds of academic subjects. In 2003, the Executive Yuan (the policymaking organ of the government) ordered that the task of attracting more foreign students to study in Taiwan be included in the National Development Plan, with the objectives of raising national competitiveness and fully exploiting global exchange, solidifying diplomatic relations, providing high-tech individuals, filling the population deficit, making education a services industry, and promoting economic development. The target for attracting foreign students to study in Taiwan was ‘ten times in ten years' from 1,283 in 2002 to 12,830 in 2011. The MoE’s policy is to attract more foreign students to study in Taiwan, to encourage Taiwanese students to study abroad, and to promote international cultural and educational exchange and cooperation. The distinction is not so clear in state or private universities, although state universities often have better students whose tendency to select an EMI course is higher than that of average private university students. Universities have autonomy in course design and delivery. Some universities have delivered EMI courses to attract international students; the MoE has budgets to encourage EMI, but controversies arise as to whether EMI has been effective in teaching and successful in attracting international students. In 2012–13, the number of university students was 1,254,066. The total of international students studying for a degree in Taiwan was 11,554 so slightly below the target set for 2011. The top five countries these students are from are Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and the USA. There is little EMI in primary and secondary schools. In state primary and secondary education, courses delivered by native English-speaking teachers are taught in English. The average number of hours per week taught in English is one or even lower because most schools have no native English- speaking teachers. In private primary and secondary education, this may be five hours or higher. In state primary and secondary schools, all subjects are taught in Mandarin except for English, which is taught in English and Mandarin. There are some local dialects and indigenous languages which are different from the majority language. In 2012, the ratio of indigenous students in primary/secondary/tertiary education to overall student population was 2.75 per cent. There are no large immigrant communities whose language is different from the majority language. The vast majority of primary and secondary school teachers are not bilingual teachers – they speak the majority language in school. The majority of university professors speak English since most of them have a PhD degree. However, that does not mean they are well trained to deliver courses in English. The percentage of English-speaking monolingual teachers employed in state institutions (all three phases) who teach academic or vocational subjects is very low. In primary and secondary education, the only English-speaking monolingual teachers employed in primary and secondary education are foreign English teachers. There is no professional standard that a qualified EMI teacher has to reach. Each university may have its own standards and no provision for EMI on Initial Teacher Education programmes. In primary and secondary education, local state school English teacher-trainees participate in teacher training to enhance their teaching methodologies but there are no training opportunities that are designed to train other subject teachers to teach their subject through the medium of English. The Ministry of Education or local education bureau sends experienced local state school teachers overseas for school visits or short courses (two weeks), e.g. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) could be a module part of a course, depending on the design of the course or the needs of the education bureau.
Broad conclusions have already been offered in the Executive summary. The report now limits itself to considering what the likely trends and implications are for EMI in the future. In the 55 country study, respondents were asked to comment on what they thought future trends were with regard to EMI. They reported that overwhelmingly there would very likely be an increase in EMI provision (see Figure 10). Figure 10: General trend of EMI for the future – more, less, same or mixed? What this means for the future of the academic subjects being taught through the medium of English is an empirical question that urgently needs some well researched answers. To date we have some evidence from immersion programmes in Canada and some from Hong Kong. Whereas some bilingual programmes have shown advantage (or at least comparable achievement) for immersion in terms of academic achievement, in Hong Kong recent large- scale studies tend to suggest that EMI may help with L2 learning, but is not necessarily beneficial to academic progress. Some research has been carried out in the CLIL European context but once again the evidence is inconclusive because of the many different typologies of CLIL programmes. The evidence from the data collected for this report suggests that the private sector will continue to drive the push for EMI for some years to come. Apart from notable exceptions alluded to earlier, the private sector, relatively free of national political and cultural constraints will continue to portray EMI as the distinguishing feature of its educational offer. Some public institutions may therefore be constantly playing ‘catch-up’ in order to survive as places where quality education can be accessed. With regard to furthering competence in English as an L2, the picture is slightly more encouraging. Given the amount of exposure to English that EMI provides, it would be surprising if it were anything other than encouraging. However, again the evidence is mixed with some indications that receptive skills improve but not productive skills. Future discussion about what the linguistic objectives of EMI programmes are must take place if it is not to remain a sclerotic practice with limited benefits, or at least benefits that can only be measured in a limited way. Moreover, if future research evidence suggests improvements in English language competence, then the debate must also include the nature of that competence and whether it should be enabling access to learning in a narrow sense (just the academic subject to be studied) or a broader sense of being able to operate using English as a lingua franca in a number of different interactional scenarios. The question therefore needs to be asked as to whether and to what extent EMI can follow the same dual objective ideals of CLIL – that is to integrate content learning with language acquisition. This then brings a whole new dimension into the discussion – whether EMI teachers should be language teachers as well as content teachers and therefore whether they should be specifically trained as such. This debate is not new. It occurred in 1975 in the UK context when Sir Alan Bullock's report A Language for Life argued strongly for a policy of language across the curriculum, one where all subject teachers were responsible for furthering the linguistic competence of their students. Will the future be one of ‘English across the curriculum' for all countries adopting EMI for academic subjects? Given some of the evidence gathered from university teachers for this report it would seem to be unlikely – at least in the immediate future until and unless there is clear evidence that EMI is or is not resulting in the desired outcomes. If EMI teachers slowly become more or additionally like language teachers then is it the case that EMI will gradually replace EFL as the main vehicle for furthering English language proficiency? The evidence so far is that this is already occurring to a limited extent but may well accelerate as a trend when government agencies and principals begin to consider their inevitably limited resources. This in turn raises further questions. What will be the role of language centres and preparatory year (pre-sessional) teachers and what status will they have in a rapidly developing EMI context? Another implication, should the trend of EMI replacing EFL accelerate and increase in volume, is the status of the native speaker of English teacher of academic subjects. There has been an increasingly acrimonious debate in the EFL field centred around ‘who is better’, the native speaker of English who cannot communicate to any operational level with their students (who have a different home language) or the bilingual speaker who may not have near- native proficiency in English but knows the L1 of his/ her students and therefore may be able to relate to the linguistic challenges that they are experiencing. The same debate may then arise in the EMI field with ‘imported’ English native speaker university academics and school teachers being highly valued and elbowing out their ‘locally produced’ counterparts. This may well already be happening as universities increasingly conceptualise ‘internationalisation’ by attempting to attract overseas (and very likely anglophone) faculty. One thing of which we can be reasonably sure: given the current momentum observed in the EMI phenomenon it is highly unlikely that the majority of countries, certainly in the tertiary phase, will seek to reverse the decision to push forward with even more courses taught in English. If the phenomenon cannot be slowed down to a speed that will allow reflection, then at the very least it is encumbent on researchers and teachers alike to strive to make the experience for their learners as enabling and as rewarding as possible.
The following publications have served as background to this study. Barnard, R and McLellan, J (eds) (2013) Codeswitching in University English-Medium Classes. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Camarrata and Tedick (2012) Balancing content and Language in Instruction: the experience of immersion teachers. The Modern Language Journal 96/2: 251–269. Dalton-Puffer, C and Smit, U (2013) Content and Language Integrated Learning: A research agenda. Language Teaching 46/4: 545–559. Dalton-Puffer, C (2011) Content and language integrated learning: from practice to principles? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 31: 182–204. Genesee, F (2008) Dual language in the global village. In Fortune TW, and Tedick DJ (eds) Pathways to Multilingualism: Evolving perspectives on immersion education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Graddol, D (2006) English Next. London: British Council. Kan, V, Lai, KC, Kirkpatrick, A, and Law, A (2011) Fine-Tuning Hong Kong's Medium of Instruction Policy. Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Institute of Education. Kirkpatrick (2010) English as a Lingua Franca in ASEAN: A Multilingual Model. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Lasagabaster, D and Ruiz de Zarobe, Y (2010) CLIL in Spain: Implementation, results, and teacher training. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Lazaruk, W (2007) Linguistic, academic, and cognitive benefits of French immersion. Canadian Modern Language Journal 63: 605–628. Lei, J and Hu, G (2014) Is English-medium instruction effective in improving Chinese undergraduate students' English Competence? IRAL 52/2: 99–126. Llurda, E (ed) (2005) Non-Native Language Teachers: Perceptions, Challenges, and Contributions to the Profession. Boston, MA: Springer. pp. 63–84. Lo, YY and Murphy, VA (2010) Vocabulary knowledge and growth in Immersion and Regular Language Learning Programmes in Hong Kong. Language and Education 24: 215–238. Lo, YY and Macaro, E (2012) The medium of instruction and classroom interaction: evidence from Hong Kong secondary schools. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 15: 1, 29–52. Paulsrud, BY (2014) English medium instruction in Sweden: Perspectives and practices in two upper secondary schools. Stockholm: Stockholm University. Probyn, M (2005) Learning science through the medium of English: What do grade 8 learners say? Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 23/4: 369–392. Ruiz de Zarobe, Y and Jimenez Catalan, RM (2009) Content and Language Integrated Learning: evidence from research in Europe. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Yassin, SM, Ong, ET, Alimon, H, Baharom, S and Ying LY (2010) Teaching Science Through English: Engaging Pupils Cognitively. International CLIL Research Journal 1/3: 46–59. www.teachingenglish.org.uk http://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglishteens www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglishkids http://esol.britishcouncil.org ISBN 978-0-86355-761-3 © British Council 2014/E484 The British Council is the United Kingdom's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.