English-medium instruction (EMI) has challenged university learners in many Asian countries including Vietnam. The students in these contexts who are not English native speakers express concerns associated with learning both content knowledge and English. In the digital age, one question is whether and how they are adapting to the emerging context of EMI. This paper addresses the query by reporting results from a qualitative study on the self-regulated learning strategies of 24 students in EMI economics courses at one Vietnamese university. The data collected from classroom observations and focus group discussions were thematically analysed. Results revealed that the students deployed technology-assisted self-regulated strategies in their learning activities both inside and outside class, which are in line with three phases of forethought, performance, and self-reflection in the self-regulation model. This reflects special characteristics of students in a digital age and raises implications for the learning support and EMI teaching practices integrated with digital technologies.
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Hand in hand with globalisation, the process of internationalisation has also gained much attention in the higher education (HE) sectors. Universities have created strategies to “develop and strengthen relations across national borders” (Larsen, 2016, p. 398). These strategies are associated with increased student intake, recruitment of international students, promotion of institutional profiles and ranking, enhanced international collaboration in research and curriculum development, and a new focus on foreign language instruction (Delgado-Márquez et al., 2013). Accordingly, developing competency in English as a global language is viewed as an essential strategy in the process of internationalisation. More and more universities are implementing English-medium instruction (EMI) programmes, “an educational system where content is taught through English in contexts where English is not used as the primary, first, or official language” (Rose & McKinley, 2018, p. 114). Given that many HE institutions are using “Englishisation” (Dafouz & Smit, 2020) to internationalise their programmes, EMI has become intertwined with internationalisation (Kirkpatrick, 2011). This worldwide trend includes multilingual Asian countries (Kirkpatrick, 2011) such as Vietnam (Tran & Nguyen, 2018).
The promotion of EMI is crucial to the internationalisation of HE in Vietnam. Vietnamese universities now have the chance to improve the standard of their instruction and learning, market their institution as multilingual and globally minded, and draw in more local and foreign students as a result of the adoption of EMI. This was officially initiated in the National Foreign Language 2020 (NFL2020) project of promoting English capability promulgated by the Vietnamese government. However, there are challenges in adopting EMI in Vietnamese universities. For example, the insufficiency of EMI teaching and learning resources and professional learning for EMI teachers has also challenged the promotion of EMI programmes (Dang & Moskovsky, 2019; Vu & Burns, 2014). Moreover, there is little evidence in literature that EMI has a positive impact on students’ language competence and academic performance (Tran & Nguyen, 2018). More importantly, the biggest issue is related to the level of English language competency of instructors and students enrolled in EMI courses (Vu & Burns, 2014). Limited English competence has the potential to inhibit teachers’ ability to teach in English or students’ ability to understand content taught in English.
Facing those problems, EMI students appear to find ways to adapt to the emerging context of EMI. Given insufficient support from teachers and universities, students are required to regulate their learning by looking for new learning strategies. While the extant literature shows an increasing number of studies on students’ self-regulated learning (SRL), there has been a dearth of research exploring the students’ use of SRL strategies in EMI settings. This paper addresses the issue by investigating how EMI students employ SRL strategies in learning economics subjects in their EMI classes.