English as a medium of instruction (EMI) has become a new normal at universities across the globe. This presentation reports findings from a study within the Japanese context, where various pedagogical issues have emerged concerning students' learning outcomes despite the stakeholders' unfounded assumptions about EMI's benefits. This presentation addresses the issue of the two contradictory sides of EMI, benefits and risks, by investigating how these are perceived by students through a questionnaire and interviews. A preliminary analysis of the data will present issues surrounding EMI from students' perspective and address the need to render support and guidance for them.
English as a medium of instruction (EMI) has become "a new normal" (Walkinshaw et al., 2017, p. 2) at universities in many parts of the globe as a tool for boosting their international prestige, but there is a wide range of variety in terms of how the term means across different regions, countries, and institutions. This presentation reports findings from an ongoing study within the Japanese context, where English is regarded as a foreign language by the majority of people. In Japan, EMI has been promoted through large investment projects by the government (Bradford & Brown, 2018; Hashimoto, 2018; Iino, 2019; Rose & McKinley, 2018), and stakeholders hold unfounded assumptions about its benefits (Brown, 2019). However, in a country where the citizens' English proficiency level is relatively low--with the 55th place in the recent EP EPI ranking--various pedagogical issues have emerged concerning students' learning outcomes (Bradford & Brown; 2018, Brown, 2019; Morizumi, 2015).
This presentation attempts to address the issue of the two contradictory sides of EMI, benefits and risks, and report findings from a preliminary study that investigates how these two aspects are perceived by students in a relatively new EMI program at a university in Japan. The researcher created a questionnaire drawing Shimanchi's (2016) list of the benefits and the risks of English-taught programs to ask students how they perceive positive and negative aspects of learning in an EMI course. The questionnaire was given to two groups of students, 1st year students in the preparatory language course and 2nd to 4th year students in EMI classes, to examine how the students' prior expectations change, or do not change, upon facing the reality of EMI classes. Some follow-up interviews with focal participants were also conducted. A preliminary analysis of the survey and the interview data, both quantitative and qualitative, will present issues surrounding EMI from students' perspective and address the needs for stakeholders and curriculum designers to understand what it takes to achieve successful learning outcomes in EMI classes and to render support and guidance for their students based on the understanding.
