Transnational Universities and English Medium Instruction in China: How Admissions, Language Support and Language Use Differ in Chinese Universities

Abstract

This article reports on a study of policymaking at transnational and local universities in China concerning English Medium Instruction (EMI) provision, and the impact this has on stakeholder experiences. It explores policymaking at two transnational universities, which are compared and contrasted with data collected at six other Chinese universities that offer EMI programmes. Data were collected via individual and group interviews with 26 key policy stakeholders during fieldwork at the eight universities and centred on language-related policy diffusion surrounding admissions, language support, and language use. Findings revealed a reliance on foundation year studies at transnational universities versus the Gaokao (national college entrance examination) at other universities to ensure students had the requisite proficiency upon admissions. Findings also revealed transnational universities were more likely to offer language support to their students and have language policies governing language use. Overall, the findings reveal a range of affordances and caveats associated with each institution’s contextualized policy making, causing ease and conflict for EMI stakeholders.

Embracing Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Access in EMI-TNHE: Towards a Social Justice-Centered Reframing of English Language Teaching

“…In this pedagogical piece, Hiller illustrates how translanguaging practices can be incorporated into an English for academic purposes (EAP) writing course, with the goal of promoting the full linguistic and communicative repertoires of students enrolled at the Duke University campus in Kunshan, People’s Republic of China (PRC). That translanguaging is a lived sociolinguistic reality of multilingual and multicultural students at EMI-TNHE institutions is further borne out in McKinley et al’s (2021) and Harrison and Chen’s (2021) PRC-based studies. In both studies, the authors report how Chinese was used to facilitate in-group conversations.…”

“…In the introduction to their edited volume, English-Medium Instruction and Translanguaging , Paulsrud et al (2021: 15) point out that EMI and translanguaging are not mutually exclusive; rather, these two entities can “exist side by side.” They add that we need to study educational contexts and develop, “an innovative understanding of the affordances available for learning, communicating, building identity, [that is made possible through] dismantling hierarchies, promoting social justice, and resisting monolingual ideologies when EMI and translanguaging are allowed to be juxtaposed.” As noted in the previous section, several of the authors in this special issue (Hiller, 2021; Harrison and Chen, 2021; McKinley et al, 2021) report on how translanguaging practices were enacted in the classrooms that they examined. In agreement with Paulsrud et al and consistent with calls to create a culturally inclusive campus climate, curriculum, and instructional practices (Shapiro et al, 2014), we argue that in order for EMI-TNHE to remain a viable educational option, it would need to: (a) acknowledge the translingual realities that characterize such institutions; and (b) ratify the cultural and linguistic diversity that exists within these institutions.…”

“…This disparity is often further amplified in ELT when a standard English ideology is enacted through benchmarking exercises that restrict admission to universities. Such inequities are brought to light in McKinley et al (2021) who highlight how admissions benchmarks—enforced by the EMI programs in the Chinese universities they investigated—ended up being highly exclusionary. This problem stemmed from the fact that students from privileged backgrounds, who had greater opportunity to study English, were able to gain easier access to the EMI programs, thereby reproducing such inequities.…”

“…Drawing on Altbach (2007), Yeo and Newton (2021), for example, point out that EMI-TNHE can, at times, invite comparison to the “McDonaldization” of education. Importantly, these neoliberal impulses, which are also addressed in several other pieces (Harrison and Chen, 2021; McKinley et al, 2021; Reynolds, 2021a; Yeo and Newton, 2021) should not be overlooked.…”

“…Specifically, we ask you, the reader, to imagine how issues related to diversity, inclusion, equity and access (DIEA) can be addressed in a reconfigured EMI-TNHE. This reconfiguration in a post-pandemic era takes center stage in our special issue, which comprises four feature articles (Harrison and Chen, 2021; McKinley et al, 2021; Reynolds, 2021a), an interview with Ernesto Macaro (Sahan, 2021), two book reviews (Gajasinghe, 2021; Randez, 2021), a review of a teaching software (Winans, 2021), and two commentaries (Dewey, 2021; Wee, 2021).…”