Orientations towards English among English-medium Instruction Students

Abstract

Based on the empirical data of my PhD research, this paper analyses the perceptions of 351 undergraduate students enrolled at English-medium universities towards English in terms of the language ideology framework. The students were purposively sampled from three programs at three Turkish universities. The data were drawn from student opinion surveys and semi-structured interviews. The findings paint a blurry picture, with a strong tendency among most students to view their English use as having the characteristics of dominant native varieties of English (American English & British English), and with a high percentage of students’ acceptance of the distinctiveness of their English without referring to any standard variety. The findings also show that many students’ orientations to English are formed by two dominant language ideologies: standard English ideology and native speaker English ideology. It was also found that a large number of students did not strictly stick to either of these ideologies, particularly in their orientation to spoken English, due, as argued in the main body, to their experiences on language use that have made them aware of the demographics of diverse English users and of the diverse ways of using English.

Language regulation in collaborative student writing: a case study

“…Yet, this is only one side of the story because we also see that the participants, given the right contextual conditions, display an orientation premised on exonormative ideas about what constitutes 'proper English'. This double orientation is comparable to the findings of Mortensen and Fabricius (2014) discussed in the beginning of the article and also resonates with Hynninen's (2016) and Karakaş' (2015) findings. Kristiansen (2015) argues that what I refer to as an exonormative orientation to 'proper English' is discernable already in the way group members propose formulations for written text by means of 'writing aloud voice' (WAV) sequences.…”

“…Mortensen and Fabricius (2014) also find that their interviewees subscribe to language ideologies that clearly favor 'native' over 'local' ways of speaking English, and students in Mortensen (2014) are also found to engage in language regulating behavior, on occasion insisting on the adoption of a more 'pure' code (which in this case means 'English only'). Karakaş (2015) finds similar double-sided orientations to English amongst university students in Turkey, Wang (2013) documents a very similar tension between 'endonormative' and 'exonormative' orientations to norms of English amongst Chinese university students and Chinese professionals, and McKenzie and Gilmore (2017) report very similar findings from a study of Japanese university students' perceptions of various forms English. In other words, research on attitudes to English in EMI contexts (and beyond, cf.…”

Progressive vs modular system in preparatory school English language teaching program: A case of system change at a state university in Turkey

“…Regarding higher education, English is offered as a mainstream course in Turkey which students need to take regardless of their departments or length of university education. Although the medium of instruction is Turkish (Turkish Medium Instruction-TMI) in most state universities, in a growing number of universities, students receive their courses only in English (English Medium Instruction-EMI) (Karakaş, 2015;Öner & Mede, 2015) since, as Kirkgöz (2014) states, it is regarded as prestigious and advantageous in terms of finding high salary jobs. Regarding this, the medium of instruction is facing an increasing shift from pure TMI to a combination of EMI or TMI + EMI (TEPAV & British Council, 2015) where students receive content education solely in English (100%) or both in Turkish (70%) and English (30%) languages (YOK, 2014).…”

Japanese Learner Preferences for Varieties of English and Oral Assessment

“…Yet some of the literature does not perfectly support the uniformity of preferences for native varieties of English. Karakas's (2015) Turkey-based study of 351 undergraduates analyzed learner perceptions of English and found that most students in the study showed an indication of ownership of English by acknowledging their English with the features of Turkish without referring to any native models of English. Iimura and Kimizuka (2011) reported in their study of 16 Japanese international students that these participants did not show negative attitudes toward Japanese English.…”