EMI in higher education: An ELF perspective

English-medium instruction (EMI) has recently been attracting great attention in higher education on a global scale. This chapter illustrates some of the realities of EMI in a Japanese context and discusses some definitions of EMI. It focuses on the discrepancy between EMI policies, practices and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) use in EMI classrooms on the basis of student interviews and questionnaires administered to both students and faculty members. The interviews with students thus have revealed that Japanese students who experience EMI for the first time in particular suffer greatly in its beginning phase, mostly because of the taken-for-granted NES-norm-based practice of and belief in the ‘E’ both by themselves and other types of students and stakeholders. An important issue emerged in relation to ‘English’ used in EMI courses/programmes is the students’ attitudes towards ELF, which are mainly divided into two types: NSE-norm-orientated and ELF-orientated.