Research on English-medium instruction in the Asia Pacific : trends, foci, challenges, and strategies

Abstract

The Asia-Pacific region has seen an exponential growth of English-medium instruction (EMI) over the past two decades or so. In response to the rapid spread of EMI, there is increased research attention to this form of pedagogy. This chapter seeks to explore the trends and foci of research on EMI in the Asia Pacific and offer useful implications for dealing with challenges and capitalizing on opportunities in EMI. Drawing on 133 journal articles retrieved systematically from the Web of Science, it shows that the literature on EMI in the Asia-Pacific region has grown rapidly over the past decade, covering a wide range of issues and concerns, including both well-trodden ones (e.g., stakeholder perceptions of EMI, EMI practices, and EMI impacts) and emerging ones (e.g., professional development for EMI instructors, roles of English and other languages in EMI, and support systems for EMI). It identifies three salient challenges reported in the literature, namely, misalignments between monolingual ideologies in EMI policies and multilingual realities in EMI practices, non-EMI/EMI transition either from high school to university contexts or in cross-border/transnational contexts, and the professional development of EMI instructors. This chapter concludes by summarizing insights derived from the extant research and outlining directions for future research.