Language practice and beliefs of domestic and L2 English international students in an English-taught program in Japanese higher education

ABSTRACT

This study compared domestic and international students regarding their self-evaluated English proficiency, language performance in English-medium instruction (EMI) classrooms, and their language beliefs. They were enrolled in an English-taught program (ETP) in a Japanese university. EMI courses and programs have strategically increased to attract overseas students and improve domestic students’ English proficiency. Despite extensive EMI research, few studies have focused on EMI experiences of both domestic and international students. Thus, the study analyzed online survey responses from 84 domestic and 24 international students, mostly from Asia. Noticeably, domestic students rated their English proficiency lower than their L2 English international group. Also, the former group found it significantly difficult in performing language tasks, compared to the latter group. Critically, L2 English international students preferred first language (L1) English-speaking instructors and expect non-L1 English lecturers to use native English, whereas Japanese students showed appreciation of lecturers using their L1 in EMI context.

KEYWORDS:

• Internationalization of higher education
• English-medium instruction
• English-taught programs
• L2 English international students
• domestic students

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. International student refers to ‘students who have travelled from their home countries to study in Higher Education in another country’ (Carroll and Ryan, 2005, cited in Montgomery, 2010).

2. The number has decreased since the pandemic: 231,146 in 2022 (JASSO, 2023).

3. The total is 83, since one Japanese student choosing Other was excluded.

4. Smith (1992) divided understanding into three levels: intelligibility (word/utterance recognition), comprehensibility (word/utterance meaning, locutionary force); and interpretability (meaning behind word/utterance, illocutionary force) (p. 76). Baker and Hüttner (2017) used intelligibility, but we use ‘comprehensibility’ since participants used the adjective ‘comprehensible’, which could refer to both intelligibility and comprehensibility.

5. Baker and Hüttner (2017) defined standard English ‘as language which is formally acceptable, has no noticeable accents and is often associated with “an educated native speaker of the language”. However, standard language does not have to be any of these things and you can also interpret this term following your own opinion’.

6. Baker and Hüttner (2017) uses locally based English. However, anticipating that participants in the study may not fully understand it, we rephrased it.