synthesis

There are two major advantages or disadvantages of English Medium Instruction (EMI) for students by the reading of five articles about EMI.

First, about the advantage of EMI is that there are more opportunities to use English and more input in English. As Brown (2016) argued that “EMI development is creating new opportunities for students”. Actually, for English as foreign language (EFL) students have no chance to use English in daily life. However, in EMI class, we are forced to use English. Therefor EMI on Japan is regarded good opportunities for students. “English-medium schools provide students with more exposure to English academic vocabulary” (Lin & Morrison. 2010, p264). In other words, we can improve amount of English such as vocabulary, knowledge, grammar, and usage. Moreover, Jessica and Julie and Ernesto (2018) recognized that “EMI is beneficial to students primarily because learning content through English teaches them English, makes them competitive in a global market, and provides them with a high level of education”.

Second is disadvantage or problem of EMI is that the students’ English proficiency is insufficient. According to study of Shimauchi (2018) and, Aizawa and Rose (2018), in EMI class, students often face English proficiency problems. As a result, students are not able to understand the class, and decrease student motivation. According to study of Jessica and Julie and Ernesto (2018), the highest response rate is “They will not understand the content of the lesson”. Students with insufficient proficiency of English may caused a negative chain reaction in EMI. Furthermore, in EMI, there have a serious problem. The gap is widening between high and low English proficiency of students. Aizawa and Rose (2018) recognized that “but heavily evident in all interview data, was students’ English proficiency, discussed as a crucial factor in determining students’ success in EMI.” And Shimauchi (2018) argued that “It also addresses the different practice and adaption of EMI at Japan’s “elite” and “mass” universities”