The Evolution of EMI Research in European Higher Education

Research in English Language Pedagogy

مقاله 1، دوره 11، شماره 1 - شماره پیاپی 22، اردیبهشت 2023، صفحه 1-6   

نوع مقاله: Review Article

شناسه دیجیتال (DOI): 10.30486/relp.2023.1976077.1425

نویسندگان

Alireza Sabzehparvar^{* 1}؛ Kaveh Jalilzadeh²

¹School of Foreign Languages, Istanbul University- Cerrahpasa, Turkey

²School of Foreign Languages, İstanbul University Cerrahpasa, Turkey

چکیده

The monograph "The Evolution of EMI Research in European Higher Education," authored by Molino et al. (2022), is essential for academics concerned with Applied Linguistics, World Englishes, English as an International Language, English as a Lingua Franca, and, more importantly, English-Medium Instruction (EMI). The book meticulously presents cutting-edge research on EMI in European tertiary education over the past two decades. It offers a thorough comparative analysis across five different countries, namely Denmark, Croatia, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, in order to identify gaps in our knowledge of pertinent theories, research, and practice. The book compiles the collaborative efforts of the writers on a database of over 200 resources that have been annotated and includes a variety of publications in different formats, types, and languages, as well as details on relevant research topics, methods, and conclusions. The nine-chapter book delves into different aspects of EMI implementation, including policies, attitudes, language use, assessment, training, learning outcomes, intercultural communication, and identity. This comprehensive book enables in-depth debates on both the most extensively investigated and the least-explored EMI topics in order to chart a course for future study both in the context of European higher education and beyond. The primary objective of this volume is to adopt a global viewpoint on the various phases of EMI deployment across settings and the development of research interests.

کلیدواژه‌ها

English Medium Instruction؛ EMI؛ Higher Education

اصل مقاله

The fundamental goal of formal education is to equip students with the understanding, values, and abilities they'll need to be contributing members of their local and global communities. Students need to be literate in the language(s) of formal education (i.e., the language(s) used in schools and other educational institutions) in order to be successful in their studies and to realize their educational and professional objectives. As is the case for many children in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries all over the world, the native language of the learner and the language used for instruction in the classroom are often the same. However, at a certain stage in their formal education, some students in countries such as Malaysia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Turkey, or the Philippines may transition to learn through the medium of a different language from the language or languages they typically use outside of the context of school or are most familiar with. This transition may take place in countries such as Malaysia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Turkey, or the Philippines.

          In many countries, students who intend to pursue postsecondary education may be obliged to acquire the abilities necessary to study their academic disciplines using the English language. EMI or English Medium Instruction is the teaching of academic disciplines such as Math, Science, and Economics in English as opposed to the students' dominant language (Richards & Pun, 2022). This book review focuses on English Medium Instruction (EMI), one of several approaches to language education that consider the relationship between content instruction and English instruction. Other approaches include Content-Based Instruction (CBI), English for Specific Purposes (ESP), English for Academic Purposes (EAP), Immersion Education (IE), Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), and so on.

The monograph "The Evolution of EMI Research in European Higher Education," authored by Molino et al. (2022), is essential for academics concerned with Applied Linguistics, World Englishes, English as an International Language, English as a Lingua Franca, and more importantly, English-Medium Instruction (EMI). The book meticulously presents cutting-edge research on EMI in European tertiary education over the past two decades. It offers a thorough comparative analysis across five different countries, namely Denmark, Croatia, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain to identify gaps in our knowledge of pertinent theories, research, and practice. The book compiles the collaborative efforts of the writers on a database of over 200 resources that have been annotated and includes a variety of publications in different formats, types, and languages, as well as details on relevant research topics, methods, and conclusions. The nine-chapter book delves into different aspects of EMI implementation, including policies, attitudes, language use, assessment, training, learning outcomes, intercultural communication, and identity. This comprehensive book enables in-depth debates on the most extensively investigated and the least-explored EMI topics to chart a course for future study both in the context of European higher education and beyond. The primary objective of this volume is to adopt a global viewpoint on the various phases of EMI deployment across settings and the development of research interests.

The book starts with an introductory chapter that accentuates the enormous number of entries in the EMI database, demonstrating that research on many dimensions and settings of EMI has been productive and expanding. The authors underline that the primary emphasis in research on EMI phenomena, factors, and variables at the institutional or national level has resulted in context-and geographically-specific conclusions. Chapter One also covers the procedure to access and identify relevant material using the TAEC Literature Database, a research tool created by TAEC (Transnational Alignment of English Competences). It then defines the criteria for database annotation and the validation process for a comparative comparison of EMI research and practices. Finally, the authors define the selection criteria of the works studied for this monograph, highlighting the main characteristics of less common and new fields and approaches in EMI research and providing strong support for the eclectic comprehensiveness of the book.

While the second chapter analyzes the history of EMI research across five distinct research settings, namely Croatia, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, with a meticulous focus on the EMI research trends and methodology at various stages, the significance of national and international policies in the formation of EMI in theses non-English-dominant contexts is elucidated in Chapter Three which includes both conceptual debates and actual study findings. In addition, this chapter examines EMI as a tool for both implicit and explicit local policies encompassing the interaction of institutional strategies, policies, and programs at both Macro and Meso levels (Knight, 2004).

Chapters Four through Eight are dedicated to a thorough investigation of EMI in accordance with stakeholders (administrators, lecturers, and students). Each of these five chapters starts by thoroughly examining the scientific field in question and referencing the researchers who established its limits. Another prominent feature of these five chapters covers the rationales for executing the research areas. They carefully analyze crucial ideas at all scales, categorizing them under distinct themes. Research gaps are discussed, along with some research paths for the field, based on a thorough synthesis of the primary research strands. Finally, each of these five chapters concludes with insightful research proposals to overcome the current gaps between EMI and research.

Chapter 4 delineates that surveys of various stakeholders' attitudes, perceptions, and opinions regarding various elements of English-medium instruction (EMI) research remain at the center of EMI research across settings, despite requests for the extension of the methodological techniques (Hultgren et al., 2015). To put it another way, the majority of research concentrate on the attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs of students, lecturers, and administrators about EMI in light of EMI generally as well as challenges with language competency and instructional design.

Chapters Five and Six mainly concentrate on specific features of EMI lecturer proficiency and certification. Due to the rising concerns regarding lecturers' competence (as L2 English speakers) to teach in EMI settings, Chapter Five examines research methodology and results from studies implemented in the field of EMI teacher talk. On the other hand, Chapter Six explores the subjects of EMI lecturer evaluation and training. Universities have created English proficiency evaluation methods and training programs for EMI teachers since maintaining acceptable English proficiency levels and appropriate teaching pedagogies for the international classroom has become crucial to their efforts. This chapter addresses studies on EMI lecturers' English certification and methods for merging evaluation with language assistance. In addition, the chapter describes the structure and assessments of various training programs, as an essential component (Dimova, 2017; Dimova & Kling, 2018), in the five nations included in the database.

Academic achievement, language competency, and language skills have all been cited as areas where EMI students' potential to absorb discipline-specific curriculum in English has been questioned. Research discoveries on many aspects of student achievement in EMI programs are presented in Chapter 7, along with studies contrasting students' learning in their L1(s) and English. Along with possible English language gains in EMI and the critical importance of learning tactics and motivation, it also examined how the language criteria for admission in EMI programs and students' performance relate to one another.

Concerns about the development of learner and professional identities and intercultural communication abilities, arise concerning the fact that EMI programs in higher education are implemented as part of institutions' internationalization processes or efforts to attract international students and lecturers. Chapter Eight offers studies on lecturers' and students' attitudes toward other cultures, multilingual methods of education, and the communication of learning requirements within the local educational culture to overseas students. Also covered in this chapter is how EMI influences lecturers' academic, professional, and personal identities.

In Chapter Nine, the authors recommend a conceptual framework that highlights the key factors and their possible correlations in the studies of EMI practices, attitudes, and beliefs. Following this, the chapter notes where more investigation into EMI is needed in terms of methodology and subject matter and provides some perspective insights to set up a system that would enable academics to collect more information about EMI's pedagogy.

One of the book's significant contributions to EMI is its in-depth examination of the most recent research on EMI in European higher education, providing a comprehensive comparative analysis aimed at identifying gaps in our understanding of pertaining theories, research, and practice. Influential discussion of the research is one of the salient features of the book in which "the most debated and pressing issues of EMI as emerging from the collected literature are in focus" (Molino et al., 2022, p. 21). It, therefore, raises awareness among EMI scholars of the existing shortcomings in EMI education concerning the miscellaneous variables and features on different levels.

The book's intensive and extensive examination of the research carried out in EMI accentuates how essential it is to "systematize knowledge and identify relationships between EMI research foci" (Molino et al., p. 208). It also highlights the need to expand the existing repertory of methodological approaches and include research views from other domains, such as anthropology, psychology, and educational theory. Most current research, if not all, globally rely on surveys and interviews locally implemented in the same context within only the education discipline. It is urgent to necessitate an interdisciplinary approach on a beyond-the-local level to give the reader a deeper and more thorough knowledge of EMI as a phenomenon and subject of study.

A major critique of the work, however, is the authors' comparative analysis of the research on EMI which is limited to a specific geographical context (Europe). It excludes other settings where EMI has substantially become a growing trend over the past decades. Consequently, research findings and recommendations highlighted in the book might not be in line with or even may disconfirm the EMI educational practices existing in countries with different policies, language use, assessment, and other effective factors and variables. Also, the results obtained from the book's exploration do not involve strong generalization for researchers and stakeholders in other settings to ponder and postulate more practically, aligning educational programming with the attempt to elude any ad hoc approaches.

Overall, after analyzing both possibilities and obstacles in the EMI area, the authors conclude that the growth of EMI has revolutionized the research and implementation of EMI. This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the most significant areas of EMI during the last three decades, and it performs a superb job of examining these developments. Dynamic and essential aspects of EMI have been adequately discussed. A noteworthy feature of the book is that it stresses the new directions toward which EMI needs to move. The book is invaluable for academic researchers and professionals working in the area since it provides suggestions for future study and research directions.

مراجع

Dimova, S. (2017). Life after oral English certification: The consequences of the Test of Oral English Proficiency for Academic Staff for EMI lecturers. English for Specific Purposes, 46(C), 45–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2016.12.004

Dimova, S., & Kling, J. (2018). Assessing EMI lecturer language proficiency across disciplines. TESOL Quarterly, 52(3), 634–656. https://doi.org/ 10.1002/tesq.454

Hultgren, A. K., Jensen, C., & Dimova, S. (2015). English-medium instruction in European higher education: From the north to the south. In S. Dimova, A. K. Hultgren & C. Jensen (Eds.), English-medium instruction in European higher education (pp. 1–15). De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/ 9781614515272-002

Knight, J. (2004). Internationalization remodeled: Definition, approaches, and rationales. Journal of Studies in International Education, 8(1), 5–31. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1028315303260832

Molino, A., Dimova, S., Kling, J., & Larsen, S. (2022). The evolution of EMI research in European higher education. Routledge.

Richards, J. C., & Pun, J. (2022). Teaching and Learning in English Medium Instruction: An Introduction. Routledge.