Article published in:
Problematizing Language Policy and Practice in EMI and Transnational Higher Education: Challenges and Possibilities
Edited by Curtis Green-Eneix, Peter I. De Costa and Wendy Li
[Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 44:2] 2021
► pp. 208–228

EMI-cum-acceleration policy in the contemporary transnational HE market

Experiences of Saudi engineering students

| Royal Commission for Yanbu Colleges and Institutes

Conceptualizing EMI-cum-acceleration policy in a transnational HE market as the regulation and institutionalization of language practices through a chronometrical approach to time for the sake of global economic competition and social mobility, this qualitative case study explores the experiences and enactments of such a policy by six engineering students at Manar University (a pseudonym) in Saudi Arabia. The data were gathered from analysis of policy documents, individual interviews, and a group interview. The findings reveal that the ways in which each student negotiates, resists, and desires such a policy suggest that an individual has some temporal resources and autonomy to make sense of “the acceleration experience” within the broader “structural forces of acceleration” (Vostal, 2016, p. 117) created at the university. It was also found that students are positioned in a double-bind-between the capitalist logic of accumulation and competition (speed), and the democratic value of equity in the EMI program.

Keywords: English, medium of instruction, policy, competition, speed, social acceleration
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Neoliberalizing education and the social theory of acceleration
  • 3.Social theory of acceleration and EMI policies in transnational HE contexts
  • 4.Research site and methods
    • 4.1Manar University (MU) and its EMI policy
    • 4.2Participants of the study
    • 4.3Methods, data sources, and analysis
  • 5.Findings and discussion
    • 5.1EMI-cum-acceleration policy as a governing principle at MU’s College of Engineering
    • 5.2Pressures emerging from an EMI-cum-acceleration policy
    • 5.3Negotiating, resisting, and desiring EMI-cum-acceleration policy
      • 5.3.1I am not a hapless victim of an EMI-cum-acceleration policy
      • 5.3.2From fast to fragile EMI learner
      • 5.3.3I am a neoliberal subject but not flexible
      • 5.3.4The ‘cultural phenomenon of zapping’ in trans/international textbooks and materials
    • 5.4Students’ suggestions for the EMI programs
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • References
Published online: 07 July 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.20092.bar
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