HA ANH NGUYEN (HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2)
HA ANH THI NGUYEN (Hanoi Pedagogical University 2)

ENGLISH-MEDIUM INSTRUCTION AND TRANSLANGUAGING: STAKEHOLDERS’ PERSPECTIVES AT A VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITY : PLURILINGUALISM AND TRANSLANGUAGING

Recently, the EMI policy has gained significant traction in the higher education sector across many Asian countries as a response to internationalization (Nguyen et al., 2022). However, the implementation of the EMI policy has been primarily top-down, leading to a disconnect between policy intentions and actual practices, often resulting in the use of students' first languages and translanguaging (Barnards & McMillan, 2014). Consequently, this qualitative study aims to investigate how a Vietnamese university approached and interpreted the EMI policy to reassess its efficacy. The study's participants included four educational administrators, five Vietnamese content teachers, one native English teacher, and 15 EMI students. The findings revealed the absence of an official language policy, with administrators and teachers displaying ambivalence toward its necessity. Furthermore, while administrators exhibited a positive outlook, teachers and students expressed both positive and negative views regarding the impact of EMI on student learning. The study also uncovered the beneficial nature of teachers' translanguaging practices in teaching challenging content over strict adherence to EMI. Based on these findings, the study advocates for policymakers to adopt a bottom-up approach to formulating EMI policies in Asian higher education. Such an approach would involve greater collaboration with stakeholders to ensure policies align with on-the-ground realities and effectively meet the needs of students and educators.

Dr. Tran Van Nghi is an EMI lecturer at Department of Mathematics, Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 in Vietnam. He is a former MA student at Institute of Mathematics, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology. Dr. Nghi received his PhD from Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 in 2017. His main research interests include: Polynomial Optimization, Variational Inequality, and Variational Analysis.

Ha-Anh Thi Nguyen has her PhD degree from the School of Education, Macquarie University, Australia. She is Vice Dean at the Faculty of English, Hanoi Pedagogical University 2, Vietnam. Her research interests include English-medium instruction, translanguaging, informal language learning, language learning ecology, learning and technologies.