The presenter discusses how English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) research informs English Medium Instruction (EMI), drawing on his research on the awareness of English-within-multilingualism and taking Tamagawa University's Center for ELF as an example. He also suggests the possibility of conjoining ELT and EMI courses as an ELF programme.
English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) research has been steadily taking root in Japan with a prominent nationwide research group and its members' publications (JACET ELF SIG 2021). Meanwhile, the first national project of English Medium Instruction (EMI) targeted international students, and there exists no specific national guideline for EMI or English Language Teaching (ELT) at university. While EMI courses, thanks in part to the current national Top Global University Project, are increasingly available for local students, the students tend to regard EMI as the opportunity to improve their English (Murata & Iino, 2018). Against these backdrops, the presenter discusses how ELF research informs EMI for Japanese students, referring to his recent research (Ishikawa, 2020) and taking Tamagawa University's Center for ELF (CELF) as an example. The "E" in EMI may be re-interpreted as emergent multilingual influences and practices among English users, rather than English as a bounded system in an ideological sense. The "M" in EMI may better be treated as a 'verb' or accommodative practices (i.e., adjusting and adapting meaning-making resources according to the situation). And the "I" in EMI may integrate the conceptual understanding of multilingual reality, motivated attitudes as multilingual English users, and communicative practices of accommodation. The presenter also suggests the possibility of conjoining ELT and EMI courses together as an ELF programme within a Japanese institution.
