Transnational Education in the Anglophone University: A Viewpoint Article

Abstract

This viewpoint article provides a critical reflection on the gatekeeping and academic language practices of Anglophone universities, evaluating these in light of the promotional claims universities make about internationalization and global reach. I then consider the arguments put forward in each of the main articles in this special issue from this critical perspective, connecting the authors’ accounts of EMI practices in transnational higher education contexts with the language requirements and practices of the Anglophone university. I argue that there is considerable overlap between the concerns of stakeholders in EMI settings and those of international students and academics in Anglophone universities in a UK setting. I find that the English language requirements for admissions as well as orientations to academic language in higher education curricula can in EMI settings and ‘international’ Anglophone universities alike be underpinned by language ideological positions that do not reflect an especially global outlook, and that remain in many senses tethered to ‘native’ language and ‘native’ academic discourse norms.

Embracing Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Access in EMI-TNHE: Towards a Social Justice-Centered Reframing of English Language Teaching

“…Indisputably, the image of the West has been tarnished as it has stumbled from one crisis to the next. Mis-steps aside, we see Western tertiary institutions as remaining committed to maintaining an internationalization agenda, much like the one described in Dewey’s commentary (2021).…”

“…Drawing on Wingate (2018), Dewey (2021) aptly reminds us that we risk neglecting the multilingual and multicultural diversity that exists on EMI-TNHE campuses if we adhere to an English monolingual ideology. Such neglect is also raised in Gajasinghe’s review (2021) of Jenkins and Mauranen’s (2019) edited volume, Linguistic Diversity on the EMI Campus: Insider Accounts of the Use of English and Other Languages in Universities Within Asia, Australasia, and Europe .…”

“…Specifically, we ask you, the reader, to imagine how issues related to diversity, inclusion, equity and access (DIEA) can be addressed in a reconfigured EMI-TNHE. This reconfiguration in a post-pandemic era takes center stage in our special issue, which comprises four feature articles (Harrison and Chen, 2021; McKinley et al, 2021; Reynolds, 2021a), an interview with Ernesto Macaro (Sahan, 2021), two book reviews (Gajasinghe, 2021; Randez, 2021), a review of a teaching software (Winans, 2021), and two commentaries (Dewey, 2021; Wee, 2021).…”

Intercultural citizenship and the internationalisation of higher education: the role of English language teaching

“…De Costa et al 2021;Tsou and Baker 2021), translanguaging is likely to be a common phenomenon with potentially beneficial pedagogic practices that open up spaces for learners to use all of their linguistic resources. ELT, including EAP and pre-sessional programmes, need to prepare learners for this multilingual and dynamic approach to using English (Dewey 2021). Importantly, this also has significant implications for the relevance of monolingual native speaker orientated entrance exams, such as IELTS and TOEFL, questioning their validity as a measure of students' linguistic proficiency (Brown 2019;Jenkins and Leung 2019).…”

“…We would also give learners space to consider the links between language learning/use, intercultural connections and their identification with intercultural citizenship, as well as a move away from potentially negative 'native speaker' orientations. Furthermore, if teachers are expected to integrate intercultural citizenship and a critical ELF-aware approach to language into their practices, then it must be part of teacher education (Bayyurt and Sifakis 2015;Bayyurt and Dewey 2020;Dewey 2012Dewey , 2021. This also provides teachers with an opportunity to reflect on their own use of English and their development of an intercultural identity, thus following ELF perspectives in offering an empowering alternative to the much-criticised model of the idealised native English speaker as teacher.…”