What is EMI?

EMI refers to: 
  • "an educational system where content is taught through English in contexts where English is not used as the primary, first, or official language" (Rose & McKinley, 2018)​
  • "​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." (Macaro et al., 2018, p. 37)
While thisse definitions of EMI focus purely on the use of English to teach content, many educational policies are based on an underlying assumption that EMI positively impacts students’ English language development. To capture this secondary goal, McKinley offers the following definition:
  • "EMI is the teaching of academic content through English in settings where other languages have traditionally been used as mediums of instruction with an intention, stated or unstated, of developing learners’ skills for using English for specific academic purposes." (McKinley, 2025, p. 2)  ​
EMI is related to other types of content and language educational approaches such as Content and Language Integrated Learning and Content-based instruction, but has one distinct difference:
  • "In EMI courses English is the conduit through which content subjects are delivered: students acquire knowledge of content material while, ideally, also improving their English language proficiency. Key to distinguishing EMI from other methods is the ancillary role of English language development—a side effect of instruction rather than an explicit pedagogical target." (Briggs and Smith, 2017, p. 28)

Why is it booming?

One survey on EMI provisions in 55 countries concluded that “the general trend is towards a rapid expansion” (Dearden, 2014, p. 2).
  •  EMI is booming ​because “internationalization of higher education remains a priority for universities worldwide, and movements are inextricably linked with increasing the role of English in the university setting” (Galloway & Rose, 2015, p. 230)
  •  EMI is booming due to: "a perceived need to internationalise the university  in order to render it more prestigious; needing to attract foreign students because of falling enrolment numbers of home students through changing demographics, national cuts in HE investment; the need of the state sector to compete with the private sector; and the status of English as an international language, particularly in the domain of research publications" (Macaro et al, 2018, p. 37)

Why is EMI research needed?

Some institutions believe that EMI “is a relatively simple and cheap solution to both the problems of internationalisation and upgraded local language proficiency” (Hamid, Nguyen, & Baldauf, 2013, p. 11). "However, the relationship between EMI and language development is tenuous" (Rose & Galloway, 2019).

Macaro, Curle, Pun, An & Dearden (2018, p. 37) state that we need the following EMI research in order to better understand whether EMI outcomes are being achieved:
  1. "We need to establish whether content teachers have the necessary linguistic competence to teach through the medium of an L2 and whether there is a difference between general English proficiency and the competence to teach academic subjects through English.
  2. We need to have an understanding of the level of English proficiency EMI students in HE need to start with, develop, or attain and what are the consequences of students being admitted to courses/lecture rooms with different levels of English proficiency, or different types of linguistic knowledge.
  3. We need to find out whether differing levels of students’ language proficiency lead to inequalities of opportunity particularly at transition points (e.g. from secondary to tertiary education) where a selection process based on a language test may present insuperable obstacles for perfectly capable content students (e.g. potential future engineers, geographers and medics).
  4. We need to understand what kind of ‘accommodation’ needs to be made for EMI students, in comparison to first language medium of instruction (L1MOI) students, for example, in the content testing system whereby they are given (perhaps) more time to sit their exams and assessments or additional support to ensure their successful following of the course content. Might that additional support come from an English language specialist working more closely with the content teacher?
  5. We need to arrive at some sort of a consensus about what kind of English will be/should be used in EMI HE. Again, this needs further unpacking: are we talking about a ‘native speaker English’ or other nativised varieties of English, or indeed of English as a lingua franca (ELF) (Jenkins 2014)? If it is ELF, then how does this affect international students from different geo-linguistic areas, including English-dominant ones? Furthermore, might the richness of the language be reduced when proficiency levels in English, on the part of both teachers and students, are not particularly high? Will ‘Englishisation’ (Hultgren 2014) of education lead to undermining the status of the home language and particularly to ‘domain loss’ where a number of lexical items (e.g. technical vocabulary) will drift into disuse or perhaps never be coined at all in the L1?"​