Abstract:

There is a dearth of knowledge on the emotional challenges content-area teachers in English-medium instruction (EMI) programmes face, and how they manage their emotions in their efforts to negotiate a top-down language policy. This paper examines the entangled emotional experiences of EMI content-area teachers in Nepal’s school education. In contrast to a psychological approach to teachers’ emotions, this article draws on sociocultural and ideological perspectives on emotions to unpack a connection between emotions, institutional language policies, language ideologies, identity, and teacher agency. The analysis of EMI teachers’ emotional dynamics essentially identifies their emotions as ‘entanglements’, reflecting the interconnectedness of emotions with other variables such as language ideology, identity, and agency in content-and-language-integrated education. The findings of this study showed that teachers’ limited English proficiency led to negative emotions (e.g. anxiety, fear, frustration, and shame), stimulating them to use English-Nepali bilingualism as a creative strategy to manage their emotional challenges and also to exercise their agency in response to their students’ needs. However, their translanguaging strategy – which otherwise might have included the students’ home language, Bhojpuri – was restricted by hegemonic language ideologies. The findings show that multilingual teachers typically do not experience emotions in a vacuum but in response to other social phenomena. The paper supports the argument that teacher emotion management is not an apolitical process but is rather ideologically and discursively constructed and situated.

Abstract:

Translanguaging remains a timely and important topic in bi/multilingual education. The most recent turn in translanguaging scholarship involves attention to translanguaging in context in response to critiques of translanguaging as a universally empowering educational practice. In this paper, seven early career translanguaging scholars propose a framework for researching translanguaging “in context,” drawing on the Douglas Fir Group’s (2016) transdisciplinary framework for language acquisition. Examining translanguaging in context entails paying attention to who in a classroom wields power, as a result of their greater proficiency in societally valued languages, their more “standard” ways of speaking these languages, their greater familiarity with academic literacies valued at school, and/or their more “legitimate” forms of translanguaging. In our framework for researching translanguaging in context, we propose three principles. The first principle is obvious: (1) not to do so apolitically. The other two principles describe a synergy between ethnographic research and teacher-researcher collaborative research: (2) ethnographic research can assess macro-level language ideologies and enacted language hegemonies at the micro- and meso levels, and (3) teacher-researcher collaborations must create and sustain inclusive, equitable classroom social orders and alternative academic norms different from the ones documented to occur in context if left by chance.

Abstract:

The studies presented in this special issue on the emotional landscape of English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education settings offer valuable insights into the variety of emotions that get entangled in policies, discourses, and practices in local EMI contexts, and the emotional effects of EMI on various stakeholders, such as students, teachers, and administrators. It is also important to contemplate 1) how the research findings can be applied in EMI higher education settings in order to develop more emotionally supportive and socially just (De Costa et al., 2021) EMI environments and 2) how to move forward with the research agenda on emotions and EMI. With these questions in mind, the contributors to the special issue were asked to review one another’s studies and briefly respond to the prompt listed below. The prompt was created and the responses organized and edited by Sara Hillman and Wendy Li. The authorship order for this piece was based on the order in which the editors arranged the contributors’ responses.

How can the studies in this special issue be applied in English-medium instruction (EMI) higher education settings and what further research needs to be done?

Abstract:

This article reports on students’ affective dimension in English-medium instruction (EMI) university programs in Nepal. To unpack the affective dimension of EMI students, I conducted interviews and focus group discussions with students from different disciplines (e.g., business, nursing, pharmacy, and education). The data analysis revealed that the social and cognitive process of selecting an EMI program is embedded in “neoliberal imagination,” in which they perceive EMI as a way to upward socioeconomic and symbolic mobility. Such neoliberal desire has implicitly appropriated EMI as a neoliberal endowment and created a discourse of unequal emotions. While EMI has engendered positive emotions (e.g., hope and pride) for some students, other students from non-EMI schooling backgrounds experience negative emotions (e.g., shame and anxiety). The paper, therefore, argues that the neoliberal desire for EMI can create a discourse of mixed emotions, also leading to emotional challenges and discrimination against some students.

Abstract:

Language ideologies are influential on teaching practices and teachers’ beliefs and attitudes toward linguistically and culturally diverse students. This multiple case study investigates the beliefs and experiences of two content-area teachers and focuses on their language ideologies regarding the home language use of emergent bilingual (EB) students in the United States. We collected data from our interviews and informal meetings with them as well as observations of their participation in a workshop. Our cross-case analysis reveals that they seemed to have positive beliefs about tapping into the home language of EB students as a resource but were simultaneously guided by normative language ideologies. Although the teachers were aware of their power of negotiating and resisting normative language ideologies, they were guided by the liberal ideology of home languages, which states that they should be used with restriction. They did not seem to demonstrate the ideological clarity of critically incorporating home languages into teaching practices. We concur that there is a need for preparing teachers to be more critical to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about EB’s use of language.

Abstract:

This paper focuses on teacher agency in creating a ‘translanguaging space’ in Nepal’s multilingual public schools. Drawing on the ethnographic data from two public schools, we discuss how teachers can resist a monolingual ideology of an English as a medium of instruction policy to ensure students’ participation in classroom activities. The findings of the study reveal that teachers create a translanguaging space to counter the official English-only monolingual ideology and draw on students’ home languages to address their learning needs and their own pedagogic challenges. By using students’ home languages in teaching both the content and English language subjects, the teachers in this study demonstrate a transformative agency to create a multilingual classroom space where students feel safe to use their existing language abilities and epistemologies in learning process. The findings of the study imply that policymakers need to build on teachers’ multilingual agency and their critical ideological awareness to develop pedagogical approaches that recognize students’ diverse linguistic identities and learning needs.

Abstract:

This article examines the construction of epistemic injustice in creating and implementing an EMI policy. Drawing on “epistemic injustice” (Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press) and “misframing” (Fraser, Nancy. 2009. Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world. New York: Columbia University Press), we discuss how the EMI policy in Nepal’s school education has reinforced the epistemic nature of social injustice. Taking an ethnographic approach, we have analyzed how EMI policies are created, interpreted, and implemented in two public schools located in historically marginalized ethnic minority/Indigenous communities. Our analyses show that the schools misframe and misrecognize Indigenous/ethnic minority parents’ and children’s linguistic knowledge and awareness of language education policy. While reproducing neoliberal values, EMI policies construct a deficit identity of Indigenous/ethnic minority communities by erasing and stigmatizing their knowledge of mother tongues in school. Such policies not only promote an English-only monolingual ideology but also pose multiple challenges for epistemic access of Indigenous/minority students and affect parents’ “party of participation” (Fraser, Nancy. 2009. Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world. New York: Columbia University Press) in policymaking process.

Abstract:

English as a medium of instruction (EMI) has recently dominated language-in-education policies in South Asia while bilingual/multilingual practices have historically been the norm in primary and secondary education. Although the research on translanguaging is rapidly undertaken in English-only spaces in other world regions (e.g. North America), such studies are rare in South Asia. To this end, this conceptual article focuses on EMI research and policies in South Asia and discusses how the use of multiple languages or translanguaging is practiced in EMI classrooms, what kinds of scholarly judgments are given to such translingual practices, and what ideological limitations exist in translanguaging practices. We show that translanguaging practices are traditional norms in South Asian EMI classrooms but not necessarily a planned pedagogic approach. It is, rather, a spontaneous practice used as a ‘coping strategy’ of English language domination. We also discuss how seeing elite bilingualism (English plus a national dominant language) as translanguaging can be a liberal approach perpetuating unequal language hierarchies in education. Therefore, we argue that ‘critical translanguaging’ should resist nationalist and neoliberal ideologies that position languages and their users unequally, and instead protect the language, culture, and identity of those who have historically received marginalization.

Abstract:

Over the last couple of decades, English-Medium Instruction (EMI) has emerged as a new field of study, motivating scholars from varied disciplines (e.g., applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, educational linguistics, linguistic anthropology) to understand its politics, pedagogy, and policy in both K-12 and tertiary education. EMI is currently one of the most prominent areas of research, primarily among applied linguists, which can be confirmed by many publications of edited volumes and special issues accounting for varied issues of EMI policies, discourses, and practices. The launch of the Journal of English-Medium Instruction is one key example, in addition to various universities offering graduate-level academic courses¹ and vocational training programs on EMI. However, since the field of EMI is relatively new, there are contradictions and, probably, confusion regarding the concept of EMI itself and its scope as a medium of instruction policy and a field of research. To this end, based on conversations with nine scholars of EMI, this paper aims to bring to the fore different strands of future EMI research, including some methodological issues.

Abstract:

This article provides a critical review of English medium instruction (EMI) policy/practices in the K-12 multilingual schools in South Asia, especially in Nepal, India, and Pakistan. Employing Bourdieu’s (1993) lens of ‘linguistic capital’ and ‘linguistic marketplace,’ the article takes stock of (a) the development of EMI and its ideological and pedagogic motivations, (b) the models of EMI policy in relation to mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) and their practices, and (c) social justice concerns that arise from such policies/practices. As the review of research and policy/practices reveals, EMI is ideologically perceived as a means of acquiring the linguistic capital, often believed to provide access to the global economy; and, therefore, a liberating tool for socioeconomically minoritized groups. Such ideology has, then, oriented the concerned bodies to position EMI within the framework of MTB-MLE in South Asian countries, creating the discourse of inequality and injustice for different social groups. The article continues the argument that the language policies, which are being developed/practiced in the lure of economic globalization, ignoring the local realities, become a source of marginalization along the lines of class, ethnicity, gender, and regions.

Abstract:

Racism has increasingly been exposed and problematized in public domains, including institutions of higher education. In academia, critical race theory (CRT) has guided scholars to uncover everyday experiences of racism by highlighting the intersectionality of race with other identity categories, among which language constitutes an important, yet underexplored, component. Through the conceptual lens of CRT and counter-storytelling as a methodological orientation, this study investigated how racialized graduate students and faculty members at a Canadian university experienced racialization and racism in relation to issues of language, including communication and the use of ethnic names as semiotic markers. Individual and focus group interviews generated participants’ stories, to which we applied a thematic analysis. Participants generally felt that they were forced into pre-determined and essentialized categories of race, ethnicity, nationality, and language. Racialized non-native speakers of an official language—English or French—often received compliments or inquisitive comments on their language proficiency, which further accentuated their raciolinguistic Otherness and caused pain. Conversely, racialized native speakers did not report receiving compliments on language. For East Asian participants especially, speaking White English seemed to offset their racial stigma and psychologically separated them from non-native, English-speaking East Asian immigrants who looked like them. These experiences indicate normative expectations. The participants felt they were expected to not only speak, write, or communicate in the White normative language and manners, but also to use or not use an Anglicized name against their will. These impositions were questioned and resisted by some participants, and antiracist consciousness was expressed. The participants’ voices encourage universities to validate their stories as well as their ways of telling their stories.

Abstract:

Despite emergent research documenting the teaching and learning of English in early grades in Asian contexts, the policies and practices of preparing teachers for those early grades are hardly researched. Particularly in Nepal, the knowledge about primary (or even secondary) school English teacher preparation is scarce. To this end, this review paper analyzes existing educational policies and training models and programs for preparing primary school English teachers in Nepal, with a special focus on the ways, and the extent to which such policies and practices respond to teachers’ critical competency (i.e., knowledge, skills, and desire for addressing diversity and inclusion). The analysis demonstrates that regardless of legal provisions to prepare primary teachers for diversity and inclusion, pre-service university courses and in-service teacher training curriculum and programs do not seem to prepare teachers to deal with social justice concerns in their diverse classrooms. Contemporary primary teacher education programs rather limit their focus on general pedagogic skills, English language proficiency, teaching methodologies, and instructional material design.

Abstract:

The paper explores how the discourse of nationalist and neoliberal agendas has shaped the conceptions of literacy education in Nepal, the ramifications for social stratification. As the review shows, the ruling elites tactfully imposed their language, culture, and knowledge in literacy curricula in the name of national unity, but to maintain their status quo. Later, literacy planning was ideologically oriented to the neoliberalism, which overtly espoused the English language and its associated culture and knowledge as must-have literacy skills for global socioeconomic mobilities. In both cases, the local languages, culture, and knowledge have been ignored in literacy education, resulting in an ideology for minoritized groups to accept Nepali-English bilingual/bicultural literacy skills as valid and their languages, cultures, and knowledge as deficit and valueless. The article, therefore, argues that the increasing growth of globalization and neoliberal logics is altering the construct of literacy, especially in terms of its purposes and uses, taking it beyond the local cultural and communicative practices to the global.

Abstract:

While other languages can be used in English-medium instruction (EMI) classrooms, little research has been conducted on the alignment of the use of these languages with the objectives of EMI policy and how bi/multilingual practices such as translanguaging respond to the sociopolitics of EMI classrooms. This case study examined both teachers’ and students’ language use in EMI classrooms in a multilingual public school in Nepal with minority students whose mother tongues were not Nepali. A critical discourse analysis of two content-area-subject classrooms showed that only Nepali and English translanguaging among students and teachers was identified and mother tongues were consistently excluded. While translanguaging in the two dominant languages could potentially create a flexible space for teaching/learning content knowledge, further interviews with teachers and administrators and a focus-group discussion with students revealed that stakeholders’ socially constructed linguistic hierarchy had led to the exclusion of the legitimate place of students’ mother tongues in their seemingly ‘ordinary’ translingual practices. The study also notes content-area teachers’ pedagogic under-preparedness to use translanguaging effectively and justly in EMI classrooms, suggesting the need to reconsider the uncritical recommendation of translanguaging without reflecting on local realities and systemic barriers.

Abstract

This study reports on an investigation into the perspectives of different stakeholders (e.g. administrators, teachers, students, and parents) towards motivations for introducing English as a medium of instruction (EMI) policy in low-resourced public schools, serving minoritized students, and language ideologies that form its practices. Framed within the notions of neoliberalism and elite bi/multilingualism, this study provides a nuanced understanding of ideological and implementational discourses of the EMI policy in the K-12¹ context, which contributes to the emerging field of EMI. As the analysis of interviews and focus groups with the above stakeholders from five different schools in Mt. Everest region and the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal reveals, the key motivations for EMI were to help students gain social and material (economic) capital as EMI was perceived as a means to achieve English skills and quality education. However, such desires, guided by neoliberal logics, have put the minoritized students under delusion because the insufficiency of English proficiency among both teachers and students and the lack of rudiments to effectively implement EMI have created a ‘comprehension crisis’ and ‘epistemic inequalities’ for minoritized students. The findings also illustrate how neoliberal ideologies have led to the practice of elite bilingualism in EMI classrooms, also influencing the local language ecology.

Abstract:

In this age of rising animosity to newcomers in host societies, study abroad students are often reported to receive maltreatment and discrimination. To this end, I conducted a critical autoethnographic study that responds to the trajectory of my English language learning in the UK and explores my adjustment difficulties and factors such as racialized linguistic discrimination. It also reveals the types of agency that I employed in the process of academic discourse socialization and unpacks causes and processes of renegotiating and reconstructing my identity as a learner and user of the English language. The data for this study was gathered from Facebook posts, written assignment feedback, and my personal narratives and memory. The study reveals that upon finding myself in a community different from what I had imagined prior to my sojourn and with contested power dynamics between local peers and international students in classroom discourse socialization, I became disappointed and stressed and that, in turn, obstructed my learning process. However, my personal investment and agency later led me to develop my own community of practice with those who shared similar linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Meanwhile, I received what seemed to me to be racial discrimination based on my identity as a non-native speaker of English, which was the result of a scaler politics of English and perhaps blatant racism toward a student of a third-world country that saw my use of English as inferior. Therefore, the study invites institutions in host countries to reflect on their language orientation and how it is responsive (not responsive) to newcomers.

Abstract:

This article reports on a critical qualitative case study of an EMI-based, underresourced public school in Nepal through Bourdieu’s lens of linguistic capital. As the data analysis revealed, parents, students, and teachers regarded EMI as a privileged form of linguistic capital for developing advanced English skills, enhancing educational achievements and access to higher education, and increasing the chance of upward social and economic mobility. In contrary to these rosy perceptions of EMI with overtly superficial promises, switching to EMI, without enough teacher preparation and infrastructure support in the school, had contributed to several unplanned negative outcomes, including a contested process of developing the English proficiency. Despite the school’s claim of offering EMI education, Nepali was the actual language of instruction in the school due to teachers’ lack of proficiency in English and the school’s inadequate resources and preparedness for a shift to EMI. As a result, the students developed neither the content knowledge nor English language skills. Therefore, rather than being an educational equalizer, EMI has served to (re)produce linguistic marginalization and educational inequality and injustice for children from a lower socioeconomic status. We suggest critical reflection on EMI adoption and reenvision “sustainable additive multilingualism” in such contexts (Erling et al., 2016).

Abstract:

While challenging the widely held belief that students in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom prefer their teachers not to use the first language (L1), the study examined attitudes of university teachers and students towards using L1 and reasons for giving up on English and reverting to Nepali in English-medium lessons. Drawing on a mixed-method study that used survey questionnaire (N= 50) and interviews (N=15), the researcher identified a number of classroom speech acts that are performed by teachers’ and students’ in their L1. The findings revealed that both teachers and students had a positive attitude towards using L1; however, they held the belief that the overuse of L1 may impede language learning. Although the teachers seemed to discourage the use of Nepali (L1) in lessons aimed at developing learners’ communicative competence, they used Nepali to help learners comprehend complex concepts of grammar and lexis. Although the excessive use of Nepali was seemingly associated with teachers’ lack of communicative competence and creativity in delivering EFL lessons, students preferred their teachers to use the L1.

Abstract

Abstract

This article reports on mixed methods classroom investigation that ascertained the relative effectiveness of two different explicit grammar teaching frameworks: (a) DDL with integration into Present-Practice-Produce (PPP) and (b) Illustration-Interaction-Induction (III). The analysis of the pre-, post- and delayed post-tests indicated that both the frameworks were effective in terms of acquiring written discourse markers. However, the framework DDL with III was more effective than DDL with PPP to some degree. The use of DDL helped the learners develop their autonomy. Qualitative results showed that the participants had positive attitudes towards DDL in spite of some difficulties they faced while discovering patterns through concordance data. They struggled to comprehend many of the difficult words and complex structures used in the concordance data, which by and large seemed to demotivate them. This suggests a need to pre-edit the concordance data before hand for lower level learners. The evidence also suggested the need for teachers’ explanation of the patterns discovered through DDL to assure their discovery from the risk of overgeneralization.