English-Medium Instruction in Danish Universities: An Unintended Policy?

Hultgren, Anna Kristina (2022). English-Medium Instruction in Danish Universities: An Unintended Policy? In: McKinley, Jim and Galloway, Nicola eds. English-Medium Instruction Practices in Higher Education International Perspectives. Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 47–57.

URL: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/englishmedium-instru...

Abstract

Research into English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) has grown exponentially in recent years; yet to date, most of it has focused on the consequences of EMI. Questions have included: What are the attitudes of lecturers and students to EMI?; What are the consequences for local languages and cultures?; How fair and equitable is EMI?; and How does it affect the quality of teaching and learning? Some research has sought to devise solutions to mitigate any adverse consequences, e.g. for example, language policies, teacher training programmes and student support mechanisms (Coleman et al. 2018; Dimova et al. 2015; Macaro et al. 2018). Far less is known about the causes of EMI (for a review, see Galloway 2020 for an overview), probably because applied linguists, who have been the main contributors to EMI research, have not seen it as within their remit. However, given that what we are witnessing is a language change of gigantic proportion; in Europe not seen since the adoption of Latin as a lingua franca in the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries, it is arguably a research priority of significant importance to uncover why and how precisely EMI comes about.