What students have to say about EMI : exploring university students’ perspectives on changing the learning/teaching language to English

This study documents the perceptions and self-expressed experiences of eleven Catalan university students as they shift from learning in their first language(s), Catalan and/or Spanish, to learning in English. The paper presents a qualitative analysis of students’ reflections in relation to: how disciplinary knowledge is transmitted and learned in English-medium instruction (EMI); the multilingual dynamics employed in the EMI class by both lecturers and students; the Englishlanguage teaching and learning events; and perceptions of students’ own and their classmates’ performance. It outlines the main foci identified through thematic data analysis (Airey, 2011; Saldaña, 2013) of students’ responses to a set of questions, considering their personal opinions regarding the implementation of EMI subjects as part of the internationalisation process of the university and offering the students’ general views and concerns about content subjects taught in English. The findings suggest that students have a generally positive perspective on EMI subjects and they assign a pedagogical value to the L1(s). Yet, the paper also reports several students’ concerns in relation to EMI implementation. Overall, these findings may lead to a better and deeper understanding of EMI in the context under study.The data discussed in this paper are from the project entitled Towards an empirical assessment of the impact of English medium instruction at university: Language learning, disciplinary knowledge and academic identities (ASSEMID). The project was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (El Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad MINECO), code FFI2016-76383-P (30 Dec 2016–29 Dec 2019)