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Palgrave Macmillan

English as Medium of Instruction in Japanese Higher Education

Presumption, Mirage or Bluff?

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Glenn Toh

    1. Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Tamagawa University, Tokyo, Japan

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  • Provides a deconstruction, discussion, and critically-oriented critique of tertiary English as a Medium of Instruction and English for Academic Purposes in Japan
  • Discusses the interaction of fluidly local and global discourses of identity, globalization and education
  • Explores the complex and dynamic socio-historical negotiation of “Japaneseness” and “Otherness” in Japanese society

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Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Glenn Toh
    Pages 1-16

  3. Campus Anglicization, Critical Ironies

    • Glenn Toh
    Pages 17-27

  4. The Politics of Culture and the Cultural History of Politics

    • Glenn Toh
    Pages 29-45

  5. Power and Ideology

    • Glenn Toh
    Pages 47-64

  6. Literacy, Knowledge and Meaning Construction: Implications for EMI and EAP

    • Glenn Toh
    Pages 65-86

  7. Hybridized Discourses and Plurality in Meanings

    • Glenn Toh
    Pages 87-98

  8. EMI in Higher Education: Initiatives, Practices and Concerns

    • Glenn Toh
    Pages 99-126

  9. English in Japan: Convergence in Mythologies and Chimeras

    • Glenn Toh
    Pages 127-154

  10. Close Encounters of (with) the Hypocritical Kind

    • Glenn Toh
    Pages 155-174

  11. Trouble for EMI and EAP (Under a New Dean)

    • Glenn Toh
    Pages 175-194

  12. What of Now and What of the Future?

    • Glenn Toh
    Pages 195-208

  13. Back Matter

    Pages 209-213
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Keywords

About this book

This book sets out to uncover and discuss the curricular, pedagogical as well as cultural-political issues relating to ideological contradictions inherent in the adoption of English as medium of instruction in Japanese education. Situating the Japanese adoption of EMI in contradicting discourses of outward globalization and inward Japaneseness, the book critiques the current trend, in which EMI merely serves as an ornamental and promotional function rather than a robust educational intervention. 

Reviews

“This is an insightful critical review of the project to expand the use of English in higher education in Japan. It is an in-depth exploration of the naivety of promoting ‘internationalization’ through changing the medium of instruction, and the contradictory pressures and conceptual confusions behind this flawed academic innovation. It goes beyond similar analysis of European higher education by revealing many of the causal factors behind this doomed project.” (Robert Phillipson, Professor Emeritus, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark)

“Theoretically grounded and ethnographically rigorous, this account of the attempt of a university in Japan to implement English medium education (EMI) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in order to gain prestige and attract students provides a fascinating case study of how global forces of neoliberalism and commodification of English intersect with local isolationist national-language-based higher education practices. Provocative and insightful. Highly recommended.” (Angel Lin, Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Tamagawa University, Tokyo, Japan

    Glenn Toh

About the author

Glenn Toh is an independent researcher who has, for thirty years, taught English in high schools and tertiary institutions as well as lectured on TESL/TEFL teacher training programmes in Australia, Brunei, Laos, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Japan.  He holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia, and maintains a keen interest in developments in language, discourse, ideology and power relations.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: English as Medium of Instruction in Japanese Higher Education

  • Book Subtitle: Presumption, Mirage or Bluff?

  • Authors: Glenn Toh

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39705-4

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-39704-7Published: 28 September 2016

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-81946-4Published: 14 June 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-39705-4Published: 17 September 2016

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 213

  • Topics: English, Applied Linguistics, Japanese, Language Education, Literacy

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