Assignment 1: English Medium Instruction: Why? Why not? How?
Most of my life I have followed English-speaking education. Save for four years of a Flemish-speaking school, English has been the norm. Until the age of fourteen I was confronted with native English teachers, however, since then, a native English educator was a rare sight. Attending an English-speaking University did not seem to remedy this. At first, I will admit, that I found it strange that complex content was entrusted to non-native speakers, but soon it became clear that content and English-level are not as intermixed as I thought. Maastricht University’s teaching system: Problem Based Learning (PBL), facilitates this non-native teaching because the students are granted more responsibility. Language becomes less of a barrier when you can rely on your peers.
All of this got me thinking about English Medium Instruction (EMI). This is something that is widely applied in the Netherlands, some universities already offering more English-based education than Dutch-based. As a small country with a language only spoken by some twenty million people, it is becoming less relevant to gain higher education in Dutch. Economically it does not make sense to rigidly preserve Dutch. This cannot be considered a new phenomenon. Without English as a lingua franca, my grandfather would not have been able to conduct business in China, Poland, and Australia. In the 1950s and 1960s the opportunities for learning English in the Netherlands were limited and my grandfather went to America. This shows that there is a difference between using English as a lingua franca and EMI. Arguably, the latter can only come forth out of the former.
Let me delve a bit deeper into the idea of English as a lingua franca before I explore EMI. Simply put, the lingua franca is a non-native language spoken between peoples who do not understand each other’s native tongues. A French-speaking Swiss and someone from Poland may use German as a lingua franca to understand one another. Many more examples can be given, from Swahili reaching from the East coast of Africa to in-land Congo as described by Trudgill (2000). There is a downside to the use of a lingua franca in general. As it is not usually a person’s mother-tongue, this intermediate language undergoes simplification and reduction. A sense of creativity and expressiveness is lost.
If such a vital thing such as creativity is lost, why resort to EMI? A possible explanation is that English as the lingua franca no longer suffices. The simplification it undergoes becomes problematic as English is more accepted. English is not the native language for all but one of the European countries, and yet Wilkinson (2011) shows that EMI is used to attract international students, and to prepare national students for the international labour market. Specific knowledge is required in a global economic setting. Sometimes it is out of practicality that EMI is applied, for instance in Maastricht which, geographically, is an important connecting point between three countries. Looking at a post-colonial context on the other hand, Shohamy (2012) shows that in parts of Asia and Africa, EMI is used because English is considered prestigious rather than useful.
Which ever context is considered, Wilkinson (2012) illustrates that EMI has some benefits. It helps prepare young people for the English dominated academic world, and as mentioned before, these students will have the advantage of knowing study- or work-related jargon in English. Multilingualism is similarly celebrated, allowing students to develop multiple languages around their EMI studies. This makes students more able to extend their careers, as well as making them more competitive. These factors make graduates more mobile on the global market. Money-wise, EMI seems like a great thing.
PBL uses EMI well by dedicating time to the explanation of concepts and terms which may not have been clear from the start. With only 16 students per tutorial, it also makes it easier to practice English. Similarly, having non-native English speakers as tutors and professors, which I first considered a flaw, is actually beneficial. This was explained in a lecture given by van Leeuwen, making me reconsider my own language biases. He claimed a non-native speaker has a better understanding of how to teach since they had to learn the content in a new language as well. I personally believe that you also learn how accents do not diminish one’s knowledge, and new ways of explaining content. Tutors and professors are not limited by a single language. However, there are times where I found that students and tutors alike became increasingly confused by each other’s English, losing content.
Sadly, there are also draw-backs to EMI. While there is promotion of multilingualism, there is no platform to actively stimulate the native languages of the students. They have informal channels, however, there is a lack of institutional support. Where Trudgill showed that a lingua franca undergoes simplification, EMI also inspires reduction. Native languages will experience domain loss, their level slowly diminishing until academically and socially the native language becomes inadequate. Since English is learned later, a class of adults is created which do not speak a single native language. Because of this, non-natives experience a bias in the workplace as their command of the language is sub-optimal. Similarly, locals develop contempt towards international students who study thanks to local tax money. “Us vs them” is a seemingly dominant problem in all fields.
These disadvantages are difficult to deal with. Personally, I would encourage a multilingual MI rather than EMI. This way there will also be institutional support for the student’s native languages, and a choice is offered to take certain courses in a different language. Similarly, I would hope to see more creative courses in as many studies as possible to help develop language in a way which is not fixed to business life. What use is language when you cannot use it adequately emotionally or socially because English is learnt statically? What use is language when you feel your native tongue is suffering? EMI and a global English should not force us to only half speak two languages.
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