Branka Drljača Margić and Irena Vodopija-Krstanović: Uncovering English-Medium Instruction: Glocal Issues in Higher Education

This book investigates the growing phenomenon of English-Medium Instruction (EMI) in non-Anglophone countries. Branka Drljača Margić and Irena Vodopija-Krstanović highlight the ‘glocal’ nature of EMI, presenting it as the outcome of international and global forces whose implementation reflects the needs, policies, and constraints of local settings. To illustrate this point, the authors undertake a detailed analysis of EMI at the University of Rijeka, Croatia, discussing policies, exploring stakeholder attitudes, and observing practices.

The book is divided into nine chapters. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to the volume, while Chapter 2 reviews the advantages and disadvantages of education in English. The central chapters of the book focus on the setting under scrutiny. Chapter 3 describes a project that the authors undertook at the University of Rijeka to enhance the quality of EMI teaching. The two most notable outcomes are a mixed-methods study of EMI insiders and outsiders' perceptions and experiences (presented in the volume in Chapters 5–8) and the creation of a lecturer training programme, which was so well received that the participants asked to turn it into ‘a continuing professional development requirement’ (p. 28). Drljača Margić and Vodopija-Krstanović's project managed to achieve the ambitious goal of ‘a planned, quality-based implementation of EMI’ (p. 27), adopting a bottom-up approach grounded in research data. However, the formula for success was also due to the complete support of the top-level management, an important component in certain contexts for EMI research to feed findings into meaningful activities.

Chapter 4 serves as a methods section for the subsequent chapters. Combining data from questionnaire surveys with individual semi-structured and focus group interviews, the authors explore the perceptions and attitudes of EMI outsider and insider lecturers and students. The study is complemented by the analysis of EMI practices through classroom observation and the ‘stimulated recall’ of teaching events. The chapter concludes with a useful reflection on ethical issues in EMI research.

Chapter 5 reports the opinions of lecturers and students without EMI experience. One of the main points raised by both groups is that an adequate level of language proficiency is an indispensable precondition for EMI implementation. Other critical issues, highlighted by the lecturers in particular, are the teaching load that EMI would represent for them and the need for administrative documents to be fully available in English. Interestingly, some outsider lecturers report a negative attitude among students towards mobility, a feature that the authors partly attribute to a cultural trait of Croatian society.

The data from the outsiders' perspectives are further examined in Chapter 6. By drawing on their findings and the literature, the authors discuss the importance of language proficiency and provide examples of the way lecturers can be supported, including suggestions on pedagogy. The need for student learning to be scaffolded (e.g. through lists of key vocabulary and lecture notes) and for intercultural communication awareness is also pointed out.

Chapter 7 deals with the study conducted on EMI insiders. Lecturers were asked to comment on their experience in teaching the same subject in English and Croatian, while students were required to rate their use of language in a variety of activities. Both groups were also asked to identify advantages and disadvantages of EMI as well as ways how to overcome challenges. In the final part of Chapter 7, the authors present the results of their classroom observation, supporting their analysis with numerous excerpts from interviews with lecturers and students. The examination of language use in the classroom (pp. 90–8) is carefully laid out and covers important strategies, such as questions and signposting by lecturers. However, issues of data accessibility did not allow the generalizability of the findings, as acknowledged by the authors themselves (pp. 45–7). The investigation of language use in the classroom is undoubtedly a demanding task, which often requires making compromises in research design imposed by the circumstances. Hence, building representative data sets is an unquestionable challenge for future research in the field of EMI.

The findings presented in Chapter 7 are discussed in Chapter 8. Here the authors further demonstrate the context-dependent nature of EMI by comparing their results with those obtained in other settings. For instance, regarding classroom participation—a recurrent area of interest in EMI research (Airey and Linder 2006)—the authors report that EMI students are equally if not more involved than those in the parallel Croatian-medium course. Drljača Margić and Vodopija-Krstanović attribute the high degree of student engagement to the small size of EMI classes in their context. Since classroom size is a trait that may vary across settings, it is likely to be a significant feature in favour of or against not only student engagement but also the development of content and language-integrated pedagogies. This is an aspect that should be taken into account by policymakers.

The last chapter compares the views of insiders and outsiders highlighting remarkable mismatches. The chapter also points out contrasts between perceptions and classroom practices. One such contrast, which is worthy of mention for its centrality to teaching and learning, regards course materials. Even though the opportunity to expand the literature base is regarded as one of the advantages of EMI by outsider lecturers, both insider students and lecturers complain about the difficulty in finding books in English in local libraries, which often results in Power Point slides being used for exam preparation. This situation is not only problematic due to the language errors in presentations, as reported by the students, but also entails an inevitable lack of depth in content learning. This finding indicates that inadequate language proficiency is not the only underlying factor for content loss (Sert 2008). Non-linguistic factors may also play a role, as was pointed out in other case studies (Arkın and Osam 2015), where the influence of class size and (lack of) EMI experience were documented. This study has the merit of highlighting the importance of financial support for obtaining teaching materials, thus stressing the role of policymakers in promoting high educational standards.

With their book, Drljača Margić and Vodopija-Krstanović raise a number of crucial and controversial issues. One regards the introduction of quality assurance mechanisms, such as the certification of language skills for lecturers, which need to be sustained by adequate policies so as not to raise defensive reactions. Special attention is also devoted throughout the book to the role of the national language, whose position in the academia needs to be reconsidered, implementing policies in favour of its maintenance such as bilingual education and the introduction of academic language courses in the local language (p. 53).

The volume is also significant for its research design, which allows readers to compare the views of different groups of stakeholders. Possibly the most interesting comparison is between the opinions of EMI insider lecturers and students, as it allows the authors to draw attention to some paradoxes of EMI. The first is that lecturers are more satisfied with their level of English than with their students’, while the students hold the opposite view. These positions are related to the second paradox: lecturers do not consider themselves responsible for the development of the language proficiency of students; on the other hand, students would like their professors to be models of successful non-native speakers who they can emulate. These paradoxes, also documented in other settings (Costa 2013), point to the need for more explicit language policies for EMI in non-Anglophone countries, which recognize the importance of developing specific language learning objectives and assigning clearer roles and responsibilities.

To conclude, Drljača Margić and Vodopija-Krstanović's book is a highly recommendable read which presents a balanced investigation of the benefits and drawbacks of current EMI policies in Croatia. By relating their case study to the broader scenario, the authors lay the ground for fruitful comparisons with other settings. To further enhance the transferability of their methods and results, however, it would have been useful to include appendices with the questionnaires and the observation schedules employed to investigate attitudes and classroom practices. These additions would have been of great assistance for other researchers to replicate this insightful and thorough study in other contexts. Despite this, the project described in Chapter 3 provides a useful example for scholars interested in finding ways to make a concrete impact with their research. The language support programme, in particular, is an excellent model of good practice to look at for settings with similar characteristics as the University of Rijeka. Hence, the book will be of interest not only to scholars in the field of EMI but also to policymakers wishing to ensure the quality of education in English at their higher education institutions.

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