The spread of English Medium Instruction programmes: Educational and research implications

This chapter outlines the educational and research implications of the challenges arising from the rapid spread of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in universities in South East Asia. The spread of EMI in South East Asia speaks to the rising hegemony of English-dominant discourses and global market forces. The chapter focuses on the following three main areas: the integration of language support into content teaching; the pedagogical content knowledge of EMI teachers; and the role of familiar local languages and resources in EMI classrooms. The main challenges and research directions are discussed in each area. The chapter discusses insights from the recent literature on translanguaging and plurilingualism for EMI higher education. It proposes the Multimodalities-Entextualisation Cycle (MEC) as a set of research-based principles to inform university policy makers, teachers and curriculum designers to ensure the healthy development of students' native languages, cultures, identities and giving them access to the target academic content and academic language. Copyright © 2018 selection and editorial matter, Roger Barnard and Zuwati Hasim; individual chapters, the contributors.