English medium instruction: classification of international students’ challenges

The number of European bachelor's and master's degree programs taught in English rose almost 1,115% between 2001 and 2014, from 725 to 8,089 [34, 36]. Russian HEI's offered about 3500 EMI programmes in 2021 and this number is growing. Researchers have identified the factors behind the growth of EMI, namely: the general European policy of promoting a multilingual Europe [14, 16]; the beneficial impacts of more intensive exposure to foreign languages through content teaching [23, 35]; the internationalisation of tertiary education; and the fear of being excluded from the global scientific and academic worlds unless courses are offered in English [9, p. 5].

In the European Union (EU), the sharp rise in EMI programmes in tertiary education can be attributed to the Bologna Process, a series of educational reforms supported by the Bologna Declaration in 1999 [10]. Eastern universities raise their standards of tertiary education and introduce EMI through several national programmes. In Japan, The Global 30 Project (2009–2014), Go Global Project (2012–2016), Top Global University Project (2014-present) aim to put 13 Japanese universities in the top 100 world-ranked universities, and 24 additional universities to develop Japan's globalised higher education profile [26]. In China, EMI policy is a key reform initiative to equip Chinese students with the necessary skills to study abroad and to attract international students [14, 20].

In Russia, the main goal of EMI introduction is to internationalise higher education by increasing the academic mobility of students and staff, as well as by encouraging scholars from other countries to work at Russian universities, fostering collaboration and opening new research laboratories. At the national level, the Russian Ministry of Education supports innovative development and internationalisation of tertiary education through the “Priority 2030” Initiative launched in 2021. 2030 Initiative aims to raise the research and academic profiles of the leading Russian universities and to increase students' and staff academic mobility. Public Russian universities compete to become part of the programme and to obtain additional resources for their development. One of the criteria is the number of EMI programmes the university can offer to international students, therefore, the departments have to internationalise their education programmes and attract international students.

The problems that international students experience studying at EMI programmes worldwide have been under analysis for predominantly English-speaking countries, however, less is known about the challenges that are encountered by international students that study in Russia. Moreover, though the literature on international students’ challenges is vast less attention is paid to the development of a comprehensive classification of these challenges. Therefore, the study is focused on determining the challenges that international students experience while studying at EMI programmes. The intermediate aims of our research are: to study the notion of English Medium Instruction; to identify the challenges that experience international students that study at EMI education programmes worldwide; to make a classification of international students’ challenges.

Methods and procedure

As challenges of international students at EMI education programmes have multidisciplinary nature, we searched education, applied linguistics, psychology and intercultural communication databases: for education we searched ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) database, for linguistics and intercultural communication, MLA (Modern Language Association), and for psychology PsycINFO. Moreover, Web of Science (Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) (2000 – present); and Scopus (Elsevier’s abstract and citation database) (2000–2021) were searched.

To increase the relevance of the review selective journal searching was conducted on five journals in which relevant papers might be published (period from 2000 to 2021): Journal of International Students, International Journal of Language Education, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Language and Education, International Multilingual Research Journal.

From abstracts and papers available we identified the studies to be included in our review, according to the following selection criteria:

• 1.    Research that provides a review of international students’ challenges in different countries.

• 2.    Research that reports on empirical data.

• 3.    Research that review the literature in the field in contexts in which the instructional language is purely English.

• 4.    Research where the level of education is a tertiary one.

Studies were excluded if they:

• 1.    Describe CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) education.

• 2.    Focus on English for academic purposes (EAP).

• 3.    Analyze English for specific purposes (ESP) education programmes.

The keyword search yielded 125 studies for possible inclusion. When the papers were selected we asked two external experts to choose or exclude the papers for analysis. After that we applied the inclusion and exclusion criteria to the papers chosen. Finally, we reduced this number considerably and had 35 studies for inclusion. Then the selected papers were analyzed to find the answers to the research questions:

• 1.    What is the working definition of EMI?

• 2.    What does research say about the challenges that international students that study at EMI education programmes experience?

• 3.    How can these challenges be classified?

Results and Discussion

• 1.1.    English Medium Instruction: definition

EMI first appeared as a strategy to respond to the challenge of internationalization, but it has become an effective tool to transform universities’ teaching practices [23] and an instrument to attract international students.

Originally, EMI was defined as “The use of the English language to teach academic subjects (other than English itself) in countries or jurisdictions where the first language of the majority of the population is not English” [13, p. 2]. Later E. Macaro [24] analyzed the definition and stated that it raises more questions than provides the researchers with a clear answer to the question what English Medium Instruction is. The definition is ambiguous as it doesn’t clarify what kind of English is meant: English as Lingua Franca or English of a native speaker; it also does not state clearly if applied linguistics an EMI subject or not; and, finally, the definition does not take into account the numerous educational and cultural contexts that may influence how the EMI is implemented in a particular setting. In our research we will use the definition of EMI given by Dearden [13].

English has become the language of international communication, or ELF (English as Lingua Franca) and, what is more important, it has become the language of academia. The use of English facilitates knowledge exchange and dialogue among scientists and elevates the development of science [29, p. 196]. The use of English in teaching a subject at the graduate and postgra- duate level also becomes a parameter of internationalization. In education context English is used not only for a subject course, but as a tool for gaining knowledge.

EMI is regarded by many non-English speaking countries as a privileged form of linguistic capital for developing advanced English skills, enhancing academic English literacy (reading and writing) and communication skills (speaking and listening) [27]. Moreover, for both international and local students the introduction of EMI into HE has become an efficient instrument to improve their English language proficiency and to move one step forward to the image of a global citizen. However, this has created added challenges for the EFL students who then must understand a second language just to comprehend the content being taught. These students are especially at a disadvantage when the content is given through a series of academic lectures [18]. Nevertheless, most of the EFL students consider EMI an opportunity to improve their English proficiency [18]. Thus, EMI is a leading trend in higher education aimed predominantly to attract international students and to raise the institution profile. EMI is here to stay and though both researchers and practitioners accept this trend EMI poses challenges for all the stakeholders.

As EMI education programmes depend on the language of instruction, namely, English, the researchers pay much attention to the language issues encountered by international students

Challenges of international students at EMI programmes

Table 1