Prof. HU Guangwei, Department of English and Communication

Research on English-medium instruction in the Asia Pacific: An overview. EMI Symposium 2023: Fostering Collaboration. Department of Education, Oxford University, UK and Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 6 December 2023.

Abstract
With English becoming the language of power and opportunity, the Asia-Pacific region has seen a tremendous expansion of English-medium instruction (EMI) over the past two decades. In response to the exponential spread of EMI, there has been growing research attention to this form of language provision. In this presentation, I explore the trends and foci of research on EMI in the Asia Pacific region with a view to offering useful implications for dealing with the multitude of challenges and capitalizing on the wealth of opportunities in EMI. Drawing on publications identified by a systematic search of the Web of Science, I show 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 and emerging ones. I identify three major 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. I conclude by summarizing insights derived from the extant research and outlining directions for future research.