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Medium of instruction in Asia: context,

processes and outcomes
a b
M. Obaidul Hamid , Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen & Richard B. Baldauf
a
Jr.
a
School of Education , The University of Queensland , St Lucia ,
QLD 4072 , Australia
b
Faculty of Education and Social Work , The University of
Sydney , NSW , 2006 , Australia
Published online: 10 May 2013.

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Medium of instruction in Asia: context, processes and outcomes, Current Issues in Language
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 Current Issues in Language Planning, 2013
Vol. 14, No. 1, 1–15, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2013.792130

Medium of instruction in Asia: context, processes and outcomes

M. Obaidul Hamida*, Hoa Thi Mai Nguyenb and Richard B. Baldauf Jr.a
a
School of Education, The University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4072, Australia; bFaculty of
Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
(Received 21 January 2013; final version received 1 April 2013)

One major impact of globalisation on education is denoted by the growing trend to use
English, the global language, as a medium of instruction (MOI) in emerging polities that
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are trying to enhance their English-speaking capacities. This article emphasises

developing an understanding of MOI from a language policy and planning as well as
an educational perspective. It explores the policy and practice of MOI in 10 polities
in Asia including Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the
Maldives, Nepal, Timor-Leste and Vietnam, using a broad-based framework that aims
to explicate the context, motivation, goals, actors, implementation process and
outcomes of MOI. The article points out the dominance of English as MOI which is
used in eight of the polity studies included in our analysis. We conclude that while
the Asian region as a whole reflects the globalisation of English as medium of
instruction policies, individual polities may have specific motivations and goals and
that they may develop specific strategies to protect their own interests and identities.
More crucially, at the macro-policy level, there seems to be a simplistic
understanding of MOI as a cheap solution to complex language problems for
achieving overly ambitious politico-economic goals and that this leads to less than
ideal MOI implementation illustrated by teachers’ and students’ struggles as policy
actors at the micro level.
Keywords: language planning; globalisation; medium of instruction; English; Asia

Introduction
A major impact of globalization has been the growing trend in education to use English, the
global language, as a medium of instruction (MOI) in polities that are trying to enhance
their English speaking capabilities. Indeed, while the use of non-dominant, minority
languages as MOI in various forms of bilingual or immersion education has been subjected
to political vicissitudes in traditional English-speaking polities such as the USA and Canada
(Garcia, Pujol-Ferran, & Reddy, 2012; Petrovic, 2010; Walter & Benson, 2012), new
English-knowing polities in the Outer and Expanding Circle contexts are increasingly
moving towards English as a medium of instruction (EMI) (Doiz, Lasagabaster, &
Sierra, 2012). Tollefson and Tsui (2004) have argued that the most important policy
decisions in language in education are those related to the choice of languages as MOI.
Therefore, MOI issues have become the focus of much discussion in language policy
and planning (LPP), as attested by the growing body of literature in this field.
However, the relationship between MOI and LPP, as Hamid, Jahan, and Islam (2013)
argue, has yet to be fully clarified since it is unclear whether MOI is an educational or

*Corresponding author. Email: m.hamid@uq.edu.au

© 2013 Taylor & Francis

 2 M.O. Hamid et al.

LPP issue. In driving home an argument that educators need to be seen as policy-makers,
Garcia and Menken (2010) explore this relationship, reviewing the field in some detail.
However, their discussion of the various ways ‘language’ and ‘education’ have been con-
ceptualised by scholars does not result in an illuminated understanding of the relationship
between the two areas. Although the recent surge in EMI comes as a consequence of glo-
balisation and internationalisation (Doiz et al., 2012), MOI was an educational concern long
before the emergence of either the fields of globalisation or LPP, as colonial education pol-
icies in Asia, Africa and South America attest. In fact, many MOI policies are the legacy of
colonial education (Pennycook, 1998), and globalisation has revitalised that legacy (Lin &
Martin, 2005; Tsui & Tollefson, 2004). This is not to denigrate the effects of globalisation
on MOI because many polities with no history of British or American colonisation are
strongly pursuing EMI (Doiz et al., 2012). The perceived language needs for national devel-
opment and economic competitiveness in an increasingly globalised world seem to be the
most powerful driver in a number of polities (Chua, 2010; Coleman, 2011; Erling & Sear-
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geant, in press; Hamid, 2010; Hsieh, 2010).

However, Tsui and Tollefson (2004) point out that the socio-political and ideological
context of colonial education through colonial languages and its social implications were
side-stepped in many polities in the 1970s and 1980s by the use of bilingual education
which emphasised the pedagogical effectiveness and efficiency of those colonial languages
while giving some space for local language use. They argue that the emergence of critical
linguistics in the 1990s, which focused on issues of language and power, dominance and
inequality, has opened the way for critically investigating language-in-education policies
including MOI (see also, Tollefson, 2013). Following this critical perspective, their
edited volume brought together MOI studies from polities across the world divided into
three groups in terms of context: (1) the contexts of Teaching English for Specific Purposes
(the UK, the USA and New Zealand); (2) post-colonial nations in Asia and Africa (Hong
Kong, India, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa and (3) the con-
texts of ethnolinguistic conflicts (South Africa, Ecuador, Bolivia and Yugoslavia). The criti-
cal conceptual lens allowed the editors to identify four broad themes emerging from the
contributions: situatedness of MOI policies, lingua franca and linguistic imperialism,
linguistic diversity in rhetoric and reality, and tensions between materialistic potential of
globalisation and ethnocultural identity.
As one of the first volumes to deal exclusively with the topic, its global focus, marked
by the diversity of the context of MOI, is impressive. Nevertheless, MOI issues from what is
called Expanding Circle contexts (such as Europe, China, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam)
were not accommodated in the volume.1 The recent literature shows that polities in this
context are adopting EMI in an increasingly aggressive manner to take advantage of
what they see as the benefits of globalisation through national human capital development
and/or internationalisation of education (Doiz et al., 2012). Second, both pedagogical effi-
ciency and outcomes are critical issues in many contexts of MOI. For instance, although
many polities aim for human capital development through English, ironically, achieving
these goals can be seriously hindered by the inadequate English proficiency base of students
and staff members (Doiz et al., 2012). This language proficiency issue did not emerge as a
major theme in Tollesfon and Tsui (2004). Finally, although critical linguistics serves an
appropriate framework for the volume to highlight the contested socio-political and econ-
omic agendas underlying MOI policies, there is also a need to look at MOI issues from LPP
perspectives that highlight both the political and pedagogical expectations and outcomes.
From within this second perspective, MOI can be seen as an example of planned
language change in a particular polity or region. Understanding how this language change
 Current Issues in Language Planning 3

is managed requires taking an integrated view that permits an examination of the context,
processes, goals and outcomes of MOI. Cooper’s (1989) process framework would be one
way to examine these issues, but in this article we cannot adopt this framework wholly for
two reasons. First, its focus is exclusively on language behaviour, whereas, as we argue
later in the article, non-linguistic (political and economic) goals are equally, if not more,
important for MOI policies (Doiz et al., 2012). Second, some of the items of his process fra-
mework are too detailed and do not require explicit treatment in this context. Nevertheless,
we draw heavily on Coopers’ ideas and the language-in-education planning framework
developed by Kaplan and Baldauf (1997, 2003) to establish some criteria that can be
useful as a framework for discussing the MOI and LPP issues put forward by the contributors
to this volume. These six criteria are: (1) the historical and ecological context, i.e. MOI
cannot be decontextualised from its social, geographical and historical context; (2) motiv-
ation, i.e. forces at the local, national and global levels that drive LPP actors to introduce
a particular MOI policy; (3) actors and agency, i.e. specifying LPP actors involved in the
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policy and the exercise of their agency; (4) educational, social and political goals, i.e. articu-
lating the different goals – both educational and non-educational – set by relevant actors; (5)
implementation processes, i.e. understanding the processes that can be facilitated by the
development of specific kinds of language-in-education policies such as curriculum,
materials and methods, resources and personnel and community policies; and (6) edu-
cational, social and political outcomes, i.e. insights into the implementation, operation and
outcomes of MOI policies in a polity. With this comprehensive focus, the volume aims to
provide a detailed and informed understanding of the policy and practice of MOI in Asia.
Before each of these six issues is discussed in turn with a particular focus on the con-
tribution that each of the articles in this volume makes to each issue, a brief introduction to
the articles and the contributors is in order (see Table 1).
The 10 polity studies constituting the volume represent a large part of Asia and its diver-
sity in terms of the levels of socio-economic development, sociolinguistic make-up, the
status of English, colonial history as well as religious and ethnic compositions of the popu-
lations. While some polities are well-represented in international LPP scholarship (e.g.
Hong Kong), there are some (e.g. Bangladesh, Maldives and Nepal) on which there has
been limited research.
As can be seen from Table 1, seven of the studies draw on empirical data involving
human participants and three studies rely on secondary, textual data. Except for Timor-
Leste, where the researcher has learned the local languages and has worked there for
many years, all studies were carried out by researchers originally from their own polities,
thus ensuring a nuanced, socio-culturally appropriate and experiential understanding of
language policy issues and their interpretations and consequences. The investigations
focused on MOI policies and their implementation in different contexts of education includ-
ing primary, secondary and tertiary. Although MOI policies essentially entail bilingual con-
texts of education, we can see from the table that the specific focus of the majority of the
studies was English with only two studies (Nepal and Timor-Leste) looking into multilin-
gual language education policies with students’ ‘mother tongues’ being used as MOI. We
now move on to a detailed investigation of the articles with reference to the six criteria pre-
viously mentioned.

Socio-historical and ecological context

An emphasis on the socio-historical context means that MOI cannot be decontextualised
from its social, geographical and historical context. In other words, language policy such
 4 M.O. Hamid et al.

Table 1. A descriptive overview of studies in this volume.

Level of Language(s)
Polity education used as MOI Methods and data Participants
Bangladesh Tertiary English Case study; interviews Teachers and
students
Hong Kong Secondary English Historical approach; text Not applicable
analysis and census statistics
India Primary and English Ethnography; classroom Teachers and
secondary observations and interviews students
Indonesia Secondary English Case study; interviews Teachers
Japan Secondary and (English) CDA and text analysis Not applicable
tertiary
Malaysia Tertiary English Text analysis; interviews Teachers,
university
executives
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Maldives Primary and English Text analysis; survey and Educators,

secondary classroom observation students and
parents
Nepal Primary Minority first Critical ethnography Teachers,
languages students and
parents
Vietnam Tertiary English Case study; interviews, Preservice
(teacher classroom observation, teachers
education) artefact and document
analysis
Timor- Primary Minority first Historical approach; text Not applicable
Leste languages analysis

as MOI does not exist in a vacuum; rather, this policy originates within a polity that has a
socio-historical identity. Therefore, studies on MOI and other aspects of language-in-edu-
cation policy need to provide adequate descriptions of this context (see, Lin & Martin,
2005; Tollefson & Tsui, 2004; Tsui & Tollefson, 2007). It also may mean that a particular
policy may have a long colonial language policy history and understanding the current state
of the policy may require taking a historical perspective (Pennycook, 1998). At the same
time, an emphasis on ecology indicates that all languages in a particular context have sym-
biotic relationships comparable to a natural ecology and introducing change in any
language in the ecology potentially affects the entire language ecology (Kaplan &
Baldauf, 2010). It is within the various layers of the context that the policy and policy
dynamics can be fully understood. An emphasis on this situatedness not only satisfies
the post-modern localism (Canagarajah, 2005), but it also creates an opportunity for com-
parative understanding of different contexts of policy and policy implementation.
Accordingly, the studies in this volume provide detailed overviews of the socio-his-
torical contexts of MOI policies and constitute the theme of social situatedness, as in pre-
vious research (Doiz et al., 2012; Tollefson & Tsui, 2004). While it is clear that all polities
grapple with English with limited resources in the context of a global order which has left
no option for them but to engage with English, it is ultimately the localness of the encoun-
ter and experience that seems to stand out. For instance, Hamid et al. (2013) show how
MOI in Bangladeshi higher education is mediated by the contrastive characteristics of
public and private-sector undertaking. This mediation of public–private dualism in
MOI policies is noticed in the post-colonial polity of Malaysia as well (Ali, 2013b).
 Current Issues in Language Planning 5

However, macro-level policy responses in these two countries have been somewhat
different: While Bangladesh has taken laissez faire attitudes towards language issues in
the private sector from the beginning, Malaysia seems to have struggled to find a perma-
nent response. The other polities that focus on the tertiary level (Japan and Vietnam) seem
not to have been troubled by sectorial divides. Japan (Hashimoto, 2013b) has pursued its
usual policy of subjecting English to Japanese using different discursive strategies (see
also Hashimoto, 2009, 2013a; Liddicoat, 2013), but Vietnam seems to be adopting
English in the specific domain with less restriction. The contributions attest to the dom-
inance of English as MOI, but at least the two polities of Nepal (Phyak, 2013) and Timor-
Leste (Taylor-Leech, 2013) are seen to be experimenting with non-English medium of
instruction. While we will have to wait to see how the ideological and implementational
spaces created for L1 medium instruction unfold in Timore-Leste, we can already see that
such spaces are being influenced by the power of English lurking in the neighbourhood in
the specific Nepalese context.
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India (Bhattacharya, 2013) and Indonesia (Zacharias, 2013) present interesting con-
trasts in terms of the situatedness of MOI. While Bhattacharya (2013) focuses on the
context and outcomes of EMI for disadvantaged groups, Zacharias deals with a govern-
ment-sponsored EMI/bilingual programme that is meant for privileged groups in society
(Coleman, 2011). Hong Kong (Poon, 2013) experiments with a new form of MOI given
the tremendous community demand for English on the one hand and the educational and
social consequences of EMI on the other. In the context of the Maldives (Mohamed,
2013), education policy seems not to have paid sufficient attention to the consequences
of introducing EMI from year 1 in a society which is still dominantly monolingual in
Dhivehi.

Motivation
By motivation, we refer to forces at the local, national and global levels that drive LPP
actors to introduce a particular MOI policy. For instance, globalisation and the global
spread of English are commonly cited reasons for introducing English and EMI in many
polities (Doiz et al., 2012; Tollefson & Tsui, 2004; Tsui & Tollefson, 2007). Although
motivations may not be distinguished from goals for MOI policies (see, for instance, Wilk-
inson, 2012), we prefer to discuss them separately in this article by drawing some distinc-
tions between them. In our view, while goals are related to objectives that particular MOI
programmes pursue and achieve (or fail to achieve), motivations are factors that may be
held responsible, in part or whole, for their introduction, but may be unrelated or only dis-
tantly related to the goals. These motivations need to be underscored because often these
serve as de facto policy actors even though agency may be attributed to other actors for pol-
itical and ideological reasons. For example, over the past few decades many of the English
language and curriculum reform programmes in developing societies have been motivated
by the availability of external funding from Australian Agency for International Develop-
ment (AusAID), British Department for International Development (DFID), United States
Agency for International Development (USAID), World Bank and other bilateral and trans-
national agencies and funding bodies (see Hamid, 2010 for a review; see also Appleby,
2010; Widin, 2011). Often it is not known where the project initiatives come from –
locally, at the ministries of education or externally, at the headquarters of the funders.
However, there is no doubt that if there had not been a steady flow of English Language
Teaching (ELT) aid, the ELT policy and curriculum landscape would have been signifi-
cantly different from what it is now in countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan,
 6 M.O. Hamid et al.

Cambodia and other parts of Asia2 and the world. Our inclusion of motivation in the frame-
work is motivated by a desire to capture some of these forces behind the MOI policy and
implementation reported in the studies in this volume.
The studies included in the volume refer to an array of forces at the local and global
levels that motivate the MOI programmes. Globalisation is there in the background for all
studies. So also is community and parental pressure, particularly in Hong Kong (Poon,
2013), India (Bhattacharya, 2013) and Indonesia (Zacharias, 2013), although this grass-
roots pressure is less evident in the Maldives (Mohamed, 2013), Japan (Hashimoto,
2013b) and Malaysia (Ali, 2013b). The MOI policy for private-sector higher education
in Bangladesh has been facilitated by privatisation of higher education in the country
and is thus related to the neoliberalist agenda. Interestingly, the multilingual MOI policies
in Nepal (Phyak, 2013) and Timor-Leste (Taylor-Leech, 2013) were inspired by political
developments internally for the former and externally for the latter. The enduring struggle
of ethnolinguistic minorities to reclaim their identity, culture and rights in the face of
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hegemonic ideology of nationalism coupled with the abolition of monarchy in 2006

created spaces for introducing languages other than Nepali in schools. In Timor-Leste,
on the other hand, the creation of this space was largely motivated by funding assurance
from external sources. Finally, in Vietnam, the special English-based teacher education
(as well as the National Foreign Language 2020 Project) can be traced to the country’s
opening itself to the world through the introduction of the Vietnamese perestroika
called DoiMoi. Thus, the volume illustrates diversity in terms of motivation for MOI
policies.

Actors and agency

An appropriate understanding of MOI policies requires specifying LPP actors involved in
the policy and how they exercise their agency. At the early stage of the development of the
field, the discussion of actors was not seen to be essential because the actors were under-
stood to be political authorities at the macro level represented by various state agencies
including the ministry of education. However, in recent decades the context of LPP has
diversified to include both sub-national and supra-national levels and therefore it is impera-
tive to identify actors behind the policies at these different levels. Since the conception of
Cooper’s (1989) process framework of LPP that calls for an explicit understanding of
actors, these actors have been located at various domains with various attributes including
power, influence, expertise and interest (Zhao, 2011; Zhao & Baldauf, 2012). For instance,
Garcia and Menken (2010) see school teachers and educators as actors with crucial agency
for policy enactment in the micro context.
The studies reported in the volume allow for making several observations about MOI
policy actors and their agency. First, macro-level authorities still appear to dominate the
policy process, although these actors remain hardly visible. Second, the oft-mentioned dis-
connect between these invisible actors and those in the micro context (teachers, students
and parents) appears to be continuing, although the latter are found to have more direct
and indirect influence in policy-making. Third, actors at the institutional level seem to
have become more visible in many polities (see, Doiz et al., 2012). The studies reported
from the polities of Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia, Nepal, the Maldives and Timor-Leste in par-
ticular attest to the first observation. Teachers and students are involved in sense-making
and enacting MOI policies, from a distance, in the majority of the contexts, but institutional
actors and their agency are found to be taking crucial roles in the contexts of Malaysia,
Bangladesh and, to an extent, in Vietnam.
 Current Issues in Language Planning 7

The MOI policy for private-sector higher education in Bangladesh, as noted by Hamid
et al. (2013), is not the making of the political actors in the polity, although these actors were
found to influence similar policies for private higher education in Malaysia (Ali, 2013b).
Dang, Nguyen, and Le (2013) highlight the roles of parents and educators in schools’ adop-
tion of English-medium education in response to economic globalisation in Vietnam. The
findings of their study show that apart from the educators, the teachers’ part-time employers
and students receiving private tutoring in English played crucial roles in the teachers’
decisions about classroom delivery of English.

Educational, social and political goals

An important component of the MOI policy process is articulating the different goals – both
educational and non-educational – set by relevant actors. These diverse goals are different
from the uni-dimensional language-in-educational policy goals discussed by Kaplan and
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Baldauf (1997, 2003). While the latter focus exclusively on linguistic outcomes (e.g.
language reacquisition, maintenance, shift and second/foreign language learning), the
former go beyond linguistic aims to emphasise the underlying social, political and econ-
omic goals. For instance, although developing students’ English language proficiency
appears to be an expressed goal of EMI in different polities, politico-economic goals of
internationalising education, developing human capital and participating in a globalised
economy appear to surpass mere educational/linguistic expectations. The non-educational
goals need to be emphasised particularly because often there is inadequate provision given
to developing language proficiency (Doiz et al., 2012). It should be emphasised that not
only are the goals themselves political, but that these goals are also often set in a political
context, and therefore they may take on a rhetorical character.
Although MOI policies can be driven by a wide set of goals, internationalisation has
received much attention in the recent literature (Ali, 2013a; Coleman, 2006; Wilkinson,
2012). Internationalisation can be both in-bound and out-bound: the former aims to
attract international students and staff for generating revenues as well as enhancing the
profile of academic institutions, while the latter aims to create employment and higher-edu-
cation opportunities for local graduates across national borders. Enhancing the quality of
education can also be a goal for introducing English-medium instruction under the social
(mis)perception that good education means English education, although many scholars
including Brock-Utne (2001), Hornberger (2002), Kirkpatrick (2011) and Walter and
Benson (2012) argue for first language as MOI as a precondition for meaningful and effec-
tive learning.
Looking at the studies included in this volume based on their goals, we can see an
expected level of diversity with certain goals being more prominent than others. Inter-
nationalisation is an articulated goal for EMI in Malaysian higher education which
aims to turn the country into an international hub for education and attract students
from overseas (Ali, 2013b). At the same time, Malaysian EMI aims to develop
English language proficiency of local graduates to increase their human capital. Interna-
tionalisation for Vietnamese EMI is of the outbound type which is expected to facilitate
the country’s participation in the global economy through human capital development
(Dang et al., 2013). Human capital development for internationalisation is also the
goal of EMI for private-sector higher education in Bangladesh, although it can be
argued that private universities employ internationalisation as a marketing strategy for
recruiting more (local) students. Japanese internationalisation has a unique connotation
which is related to developing students’ skills and ability to engage with other nations
 8 M.O. Hamid et al.

for promoting Japan and Japanese in the world. This goal leads Japanese education
policy-makers to subordinate English skills to Japanese, although some internationalisa-
tion effort is also being made to attract overseas students to Japanese universities to
study through English.
Enhancing the quality of education remains an important goal for MOI policies,
although this is not clearly spelled out in all the studies included in the volume. It
may be the case that many polities either take it for granted that quality education
means English education (e.g. Hong Kong; see Lin, 1999) or that the link between effec-
tive learning and an L2 used as an MOI, particularly at the early stage of education, is
controversial (Brock-Utne, 2001). It is the argument of effective and meaningful learning
that underlies the mother-tongue-based multilingual programmes in Timor-Leste (Taylor-
Leech, 2013) and Nepal (Phyak, 2013) and which is not given space in the Maldives
(Mohamed, 2013), resulting in less-than-desirable educational experiences for teachers
and students. However, the goal of accessing widely available resources can also
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drive MOI policies, as can be seen in the article by Dang et al. (2013, Vietnam)
which shows that the preservice teachers in the special teacher-education programme
accessed web-based resources in preparing for their teaching. This also means that
choosing a local language as MOI may shut the door on the global resources as only
minimal materials may be available in such languages, as is shown by the Bangladeshi
study (Hamid et al., 2013). However, policies of prioritising English as MOI on the
grounds of availability of teaching and learning resources need to pay heed to an impor-
tant argument put forward by Annamalai (2004) that a language does not become resour-
ceful as an academic language prior to its use as such; rather it needs to be given a
chance and depending on the needs, its lexicalisation, stylisation and other forms of
modernisation (corpus planning) may follow. It appears from the studies that the power-
ful forces of internationalisation and the perceived need for English and English profi-
ciency have set aside these critical considerations.
Unmistakably, developing proficiency in English, which provides the link to human
capital development, internationalisation and globalisation, pushes the EMI agenda
forward in the polities reported in the volume. Yet, it is clear that the various contexts of
EMI have paid little attention to the development of language competence by making ade-
quate allocations of financial, personnel and material resources (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997,
2003) in their teaching institutions. This resonates with findings from EMI research in other
contexts (Doiz et al., 2012). These issues are discussed further when we look at the
implementation process and outcomes of EMI programmes.

Implementation process
Perhaps the most crucial issue is the process of implementation of the MOI policies. Under-
standing the processes can be facilitated by the development of the kinds of policies such as
curriculum, materials and methods, resources and personnel and community discussed by
Kaplan and Baldauf (1997, 2003). However, one crucial issue that is not directly incorpor-
ated into these policy types is power which also needs explicit attention. The aim is to
understand whether sufficient provision is made for smooth translation of the policy
from the context of its formulation to its implementation, what kind of policy ownership
is created for different actors and whether there is sufficient room for the exercise of
agency and power by them. A growing body of research in language planning and
policy has shown significant disparity between policy and practice of MOI at the level of
education delivery in a number of polities (Ali, 2013a). Discussions of these disparities
 Current Issues in Language Planning 9

should enable us to develop an understanding of the gap between policy-making and policy
outcomes and to understand its characters.
The majority of the studies included in the volume focus on MOI in action at various
levels and contexts of education and thus provide insights into the MOI implementation
process from the perspectives of its crucial actors including teachers and students. In fact,
as Table 1 shows, teachers and students are common participants in all studies that involved
human subjects and the implied participants in the document-based studies. One conclusion
that can be drawn from the relevant studies is that the implementation of MOI policies is con-
strained in various ways, highlighting the tensions and struggles of the actors involved.
In Malaysian higher education, as reported by Ali (2013b), teachers’ struggles can be, to a
large extent, attributed to the nature of the MOI policy and the way it has been disseminated
by macro-level authorities to higher-education institutions. Because the policy directions were
not communicated in a written form and the reference to English is made euphemistically as a
foreign language – a policy strategy also used by Finnish education authorities (see Cots,
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2012) – teachers at the university under investigation interpreted the directive in different
ways, taking different pedagogic actions in its implementation. Teachers also pointed out con-
ceptual imprecision of EMI and the vagueness of policy. For instance, even those teachers
who understood that English was meant to be used for teaching and learning in the classroom
were not sure whether English was also to be used in teacher–student and student–student
interactions. Thus, the translation of the policy and policy expectations from the macro
level to the micro level was not smooth or clear as to how it was calling for the exercise
of teachers’ agency. Issues of policy translation also emerge from the Indonesian study by
Zacharias (2013) who shows how teachers as civil servants felt constrained in their
implementation of MOI policy in the school context.
The teachers and the students discussed in the Bangladeshi study (Hamid et al., 2013) of
EMI in one private university appear to have a sound understanding of institutional policy
expectations. Nevertheless, teaching and learning through English is affected by students’
and teachers’ limited language proficiency and also by the inadequacy of the English-only
policy. Many students observed that their content learning would have been facilitated if
they had had access to L1 for instruction and L1-based learning resources. Language pro-
ficiency issues affected teaching and learning in the Indonesian classroom as well, as
reported by Zacharias (2013). EMI in practice does not offer learning potential in the
Indian context either, as investigated by Bhattacharya (2013), which is beset by issues of
teacher proficiency, academic and professional qualifications, teacher shortages and lack
of logistics and infrastructure. The MOI context in Nepal, where a minority language is
used for instruction, as reported by Phyak (2013), lacks promising implementational
space due to lack of commitment of policy-makers, inadequate investment in education,
contested language ideologies among parents and community pressure.
On the other hand, EMI for the teacher-education programme in Vietnam, as reported
by Dang et al. (2013), seems to have been well received by the elite cohort of preservice
teachers and appears to benefit these teachers in their own teaching practice. The article
highlights the importance of preparing teachers for teaching through the medium of a
second language, an issue that is yet to be given much attention in language teacher edu-
cation or language-in-education policy.

Educational, social and political outcomes

The final component of our framework is empirical in nature which is expected to give us
insights into the implementation, operation and outcomes of MOI policies in a polity. In
 10 M.O. Hamid et al.

discussing these outcomes, a distinction needs to be maintained between planned outcomes

and unplanned outcomes. This distinction is important because MOI studies in many poli-
ties show that unplanned outcomes weigh heavier than planned changes. For instance,
English as MOI in Singapore was expected to turn Singaporeans into bilinguals who
would function in English in a globalised world and maintain their socio-cultural identity
through other languages. However, this pragmatic approach to English failed to predict
that in course of time English might take over the socio-cultural space specified for other
languages (Pakir, 2004; Rubdy, 2005).
Although the 10 studies included in this volume do not provide evaluations of MOI pol-
icies or produce substantial evidence for evaluation purposes, they do generate empirical
insights which may provide the basis for commenting on policy outcomes. Based on
these insights, it appears that EMI instruction is not necessarily a clear path to meeting
national expectations in terms of English proficiency development, human capital develop-
ment, internationalisation and facilitation of national participation in a global economy. It is
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understandable that language planning outcomes, unlike those of natural resources plan-
ning, are neither immediately evident nor accurately measurable (Kaplan & Baldauf,
1997). Nevertheless, the way language planning activities are carried out, the amount of
resources invested and the kinds of assessment and feedback various stakeholders
provide, as outlined by the contributions to this volume, enable us to make at least reason-
able predictions about such outcomes. Given that, it can be argued that the MOI agendas
and policy expectations in many polities are more rhetorical than practical. As such,
MOI policies seem to be driven by dominant discourses of the benefits of English and
not necessarily by a consideration of obtainable returns from investment.
As an MOI, English has dual identities in EMI programmes: it is both the object of
instruction (proficiency development together with content learning) and the vehicle for
teaching and learning. However, since content teachers are either uninterested in language
development or do not have the time and/or expertise to deal with language (Doiz et al.,
2012), mere exposure to content-teaching input does not promote language development.
At the same time, since inadequate language proficiency is an issue for teachers as well
as students, even content learning is often affected by such instruction. Thus, instead of
the highly desirable double gain one might expect from bilingual programmes, EMI may
lead to a double loss, as indicted in the articles by Hamid et al. (Bangladesh), Ali (Malay-
sia), Mohamed (the Maldives), Bhattacharya (India) and Zacharias (Indonesia), which can
be seen as unplanned outcomes of EMI.
However, unplanned EMI outcomes are not necessarily undesirable. Thus, Vietna-
mese teacher-education programme investigated by Dang et al. (2013) indicates that
using EMI has set the preservice teachers free to choose teaching materials from
global sources which will not only benefit students but also promote self-learning and
professional development. More notably, as the Indonesian study shows, EMI has the
potential to encourage teachers to give up their power and authority and become learners
in a community of learners and learn the language collectively in the class. Teachers’
modest attitudes accompanied by an acknowledgment of their limited English profi-
ciency, as displayed by the Indonesian study, may create more equitable, productive
and sympathetic teacher–student relationships in the Asian classroom, a development
which has been long overdue.
There is a substantial body of literature that deals with identity and MOI issues (David
& Tien, 2009; Parkinson & Crouch, 2011; Sandhu, 2010). Although students’ imagined
identities (see Gao, 2012; Kanno, 2003; Kanno & Norton, 2003) are implicated when a
global language such as English is used as an MOI for globalisation and
 Current Issues in Language Planning 11

internationalisation, these socio-cultural issues have not received much attention in the
studies included in the volume (but see Poon, 2013 for Hong Kong). However, identity
politics at the institutional level is the focus of the Bangladeshi study which illustrates
that students and teachers from an English-medium private university were engaged in
othering Bangla-medium public universities in the country. Moreover, the L1-based multi-
lingual programmes in Nepal and Timor-Leste are motivated by both protecting the min-
ority identities of the ethnolinguistic groups and ensuring minority children’s access to
basic education. Finally, protecting Japanese identity underlies Japanese education
policy-makers’ engagement with English, as analysed by Hashimoto (2013b).

Conclusion
The volume has brought together 10 studies from the Asian region and has provided
insights into the motivations, goals and outcomes of MOI. In this introductory article,
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we have used a six-point framework to discuss various aspects of MOI in each of the poli-
ties to make it possible to draw some overarching conclusions. Although this framework is
broad-based, we cannot claim that we have been able to capture the complexity of MOI
which has become an important aspect of language-in-education planning in many parts
of Asia and the world. At the same time, we do not intend to imply that the 10 articles
can represent all languages, levels of education and polities in Asia. With these disclaimers
in mind, we would draw the following conclusions.
First, although globalisation appears to be the major force behind the contemporary
trends towards the use of English as medium of instruction (Doiz et al., 2012; Tollefson,
2013; Tsui & Tollefson, 2007), MOI policies in individual polities may have specific motiv-
ations and goals within the broader context of globalisation.
Second, contemporary research on MOI seems to emphasise what is called the ‘public
sphere’ (see Tollefson, 2013) in recognition of the actors and their power and agency at the
micro level (Baldauf, 2005, 2012; Zhao, 2011; Zhao & Baldauf, 2012). Teachers and stu-
dents may have to struggle with MOI policies in making sense of them, but their agency
seems to be at the centre of their practice. Thus, although macro-level actors still maintain
their dominance, the focus has shifted to the agency of the actors at the local level in line
with emerging trend in language-in-education policy research (Meknen & Garcia, 2010;
Tollefson, 2013).
Third, at the risk of being accused of scepticism, we would assert that MOI in action as
can be understood from the collection of studies is fraught with difficulties and challenges.
Despite some positive by-products of teachers’ and students’ struggle with MOI in the local
context, such programmes do not indicate that policy expectations – whether educational,
economic or political – can be met within the existing frameworks of policy-making,
resourcing and implementation.
Fourth, the studies suggest that there seems to be a notion at the macro-policy level in
many of the polities that MOI is a relatively simple and cheap solution to both the problems
of internationalisation and upgraded local language proficiency. This may be the case where
detailed language planning provisions are made (as in the Vietnam example), but in most
other polities insufficient resources and a lack of attention to the language planning
details are leading to less-than-desired outcomes. As Kaplan, Baldauf, and Kamwangamalu
(2011) indicate, we know quite a lot about what makes for successful language planning,
but we fail when we do not make use of that knowledge.
Finally, while the Asian region as a whole reflects the globalisation of MOI policies (see
Rizvi & Lingard, 2010), strategic actions to protect individual polity interests and identities
 12 M.O. Hamid et al.

cannot be underestimated. Thus, Japanese policy documents avoid referring to English as

MOI, which is probably reserved for Japanese. Similarly, Malaysian authorities have EMI
policies that are unwritten while Bangladeshi policy-makers transfer the responsibility of
EMI to the private sector in a bid to protect spaces for national languages.
To conclude, while much more research is needed from all polities in Asia, we believe
that the volume contributes to the literature by illuminating the context, processes and out-
comes of MOI and by providing updates on research in the field.

Notes
1. However, the Asian focus was subsequently taken up in Tsui and Tollefson (2007), where issues
of MOI are also discussed and the following three themes were identified: (1) reconstructing
national cultural identities through the discourse of English, (2) reconstructing histories and cul-
tures and (3) linguistic homogeneity and English as a resource for democratisation. English
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language policy and education also features strongly in this volume.

2. These groups not only provide ELT aid, but sponsor and publish ELT research that supports their
interests, e.g. English-related bilingual education (Johnstone, 2010), primary (English) inno-
vations (Powell-Davies, 2007).

Notes on contributors
M. Obaidul Hamid is Lecturer in TESOL Education at the University of Queensland, Australia. His
research focuses on the policy and practice of TESOL education in developing societies. He has pub-
lished his work in TESOL Quarterly, Current Issues in Language Planning, ELT Journal, Language
Learning Journal and Language, Culture and Curriculum.
Hoa Thi Mai Nguyen is a research fellow at the University of Sydney. She has experience teaching
TESOL and training pre-service and in-service teachers. Her ongoing research interests have been
in the areas of TESOL, language planning and policy, and teacher education.
Richard B. Baldauf Jr. is Professor of TESOL Education at the University of Queensland, Australia.
His research and publications focus on language policy and planning especially as it relates to edu-
cation in the Asia Pacific region. He has written numerous articles and co-edited or co-authored
more than 15 books with Multilingual Matters, Routledge and Kluwer-Springer related to language
planning.

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