Moving beyond ‘infancy’: towards a cross-fertilization between EMI and EAP scholarship

Abstract

Growth in the provision of English medium instruction (EMI) has led to a significant increase in publications on EMI. Several publications claim that EMI is a young field that is still at the level of ‘infancy’ in areas such as language-related student support and teacher education. This raises the question why EMI appears not to draw on research and practices from English for academic purposes (EAP), a discipline with a longer history of enquiry into English-medium education. In this paper, we explore convergences between EMI and EAP in the areas of student support, collaboration between language teachers and subject teachers, and teacher education, and suggest some EAP theories and practices that EMI might usefully draw on. We conclude by stressing the need for cross-fertilization between EMI and EAP scholarship and for a joined research agenda that aims to produce more systematic empirical evidence of the benefits of discipline-specific academic language and literacy development.