Jul 2026· IJEE (Indonesian Journal of English Education)· 0 citations
Abstract
The expansion of English Medium Instruction (EMI) across Asian higher education has intensified post-pandemic, yet a comprehensive understanding of its implementation landscape remains limited. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, this systematic review synthesizes 15 empirical studies (2015–2025) from four academic databases to explore implementation trends, stakeholder challenges, and adaptation strategies in Asian EFL contexts. Frequency analysis revealed that linguistic difficulties were a primary barrier in 87% of the studies, pedagogical inconsistency in 60%, and language anxiety affected 53% of the combined participants. Thematic synthesis identified three core dimensions: top-down policies generating macro-micro gaps and institutional stratification; multidimensional linguistic and psychological barriers impacting engagement; and emergent adaptive strategies, including translanguaging, bilingual professional learning communities, and learner metacognition. These findings highlight that EMI is a complex educational ecosystem rather than a mere linguistic shift. This review offers a structured, geographically scoped framework for policymakers, institutions, and future researchers to improve EMI quality and equity in the region.
This study provides a narrative review of contemporary challenges in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in higher education across diverse international contexts. It synthesizes evidence from peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025. The analysis identifies six interrelated domains of difficulty: student-related factors (proficiency, motivation, anxiety), cultural and linguistic diversity, pedagogical and methodological constraints, community attitudes and perceptions, curriculum and assessment systems, and teacher, technological, and institutional limitations. Rather than representing isolated barriers, these challenges interact across policy, institutional, pedagogical, and learner levels. Positive attitudes toward English often coexist with critiques of inequality; Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is endorsed in policy but undermined by exam-driven curricula; and technology promises innovation yet exacerbates inequities without adequate training and infrastructure. The review argues that sustainable improvement depends on systemic coherence across policy, institutional governance, curriculum design, teacher development, and learner-centered practice rather than isolated interventions. Future research should expand comparative research across underexplored regions, employ longitudinal designs to assess the durability of reforms, and critically examine the role of emerging tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) in language instruction. By integrating evidence across diverse educational contexts into a coherent multi-level framework, the study contributes a holistic perspective on improving EFL teaching in higher education.
This study examines the feasibility and pedagogical value of incorporating Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT) into Taiwanese bilingual elementary English education, an area that remains critically underexplored despite the rapid global expansion of bilingual schooling. Focusing on a Taiwanese elementary school operating under the Bilingual 2030 policy, the study draws on semi‐structured interviews and focus group discussions to examine teachers' perceptions of bilingual teaching experiences and possibilities for integrating GELT principles into curricula. Findings reveal that bilingual education aligns well with GELT principles and serves as a catalyst for re‐shaping teachers' language ideologies. Despite institutional constraints, attachments to “native” English norms and societal expectations, participants expressed a strong willingness to adopt GELT. The study advances understanding of how GELT can be meaningfully implemented at the foundational stages of education and how bilingual education acts as a setting where language ideologies begin to take shape. The findings underscore the pivotal role of teacher professional development, successful classroom implementation of curricular innovation, teacher collaboration, and teacher agency in driving GELT‐informed curricula change. Although centered on a single school, the study contributes original evidence from an underrepresented educational context and provides timely, practice‐grounded perspectives on how bilingual education systems can support more equitable, globally oriented ELT.
As Taiwan advances its agenda under the Bilingual 2030 policy, English is increasingly framed as a medium for intercultural engagement rather than merely an academic subject. With the expansion of English-medium instruction and English use in a variety of domains, Taiwanese learners are more likely to use English with other non-native speakers in global contexts. In this setting, pragmatic competence and Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT), a framework with pragmatics at its core, are essential for enabling learners to negotiate meaning, manage interaction and adapt to diverse cultural norms in an increasingly multilingual and globalized world. Despite this policy shift, English Language Teaching (ELT) curriculum reform has not kept pace. This study examines the extent to which GELT dimensions are incorporated into Taiwan's national ELT curriculum guidelines and four widely used elementary English textbook series. Using deductive thematic analysis and qualitative content analysis across eight dimensions of an adapted GELT framework, the findings reveal a significant divergence between policy-level intentions and their realization in instructional materials. The curriculum guidelines align closely with GELT principles, emphasizing communicative effectiveness, intercultural awareness and the de-centring of native-speaker norms. However, GELT-related pragmatic elements remain largely conceptual, with limited explicit guidance on context-sensitive language use and interactional strategies at the elementary level. In contrast, textbook representations of GELT are partial and uneven. Although some cultural diversity and strategic use of learners’ first language are evident, key dimensions, such as target interlocutors, role models and language norms, continue to privilege Inner-Circle orientations and accuracy-focused conventions. Overall, the study characterizes Taiwan's ELT landscape as a hybrid and transitional model in which globally oriented communicative aims coexist with persistent native-normative practices, highlighting the need for stronger alignment among curriculum design, materials development, assessment practices and teacher education to support sustainable GELT-informed ELT reform.
This study aimed to identify the main challenges affecting the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Ecuador. A systematic literature review was conducted following the PRISMA methodology, analyzing 20 peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025 in databases such as Scopus, ERIC, Latindex 2.0, and SciELO. The findings revealed persistent difficulties, including inadequate teacher training, limited resources, limited technological integration, and low student motivation. Additional issues included minimal exposure to authentic English use, contradictions in national language policies, and disparities between rural and urban contexts. The review also found a lack of longitudinal and experimental research designs, which limits the applicability of existing findings. It was concluded that addressing these challenges requires stronger teacher development programs, improved infrastructure, context-sensitive policy reforms, and more rigorous research to enhance the quality and sustainability of EFL education in Ecuador.
Carlos Lenin Álvarez Llerena, Tatiana Gabriela Pineda Guzmán, Xavier Oswaldo Viteri Guevara· MASKANA· 0 citations
Teacher professional development (TPD) is commonly framed as an instructional improvement strategy; however, in contexts of rapid English expansion it also functions as a central policy instrument through which language-in-education planning is enacted. This systematic review reconceptualizes Saudi English-as-a-foreign-language TPD as acquisition planning and synthesizes 22 studies published between 2015 and 2025. Guided by PRISMA 2020 procedures and thematic narrative analysis, the review compares dominant PD models, teacher-identified needs, and implementation conditions across K–12 and tertiary sectors. Findings reveal a persistent policy–practice misalignment: ambitious English reform agendas are not consistently supported by sustained, context-responsive professional learning infrastructures. Provision remains dominated by short, centrally mandated workshops that teachers frequently perceive as decontextualized and evaluative rather than developmental. Concurrently, teachers construct compensatory ecologies of self-directed and collegial learning, while online and blended PD has expanded following COVID-19. Constraints cluster around governance, capacity, and equity, whereas enabling conditions emphasize sustained, collaborative, and job-embedded learning aligned with curriculum and assessment. Positioning TPD as acquisition planning clarifies its pivotal role in mediating English policy enactment and highlights the need for implementation-focused, outcome-oriented research on English language-in-education planning capacity.
R. Mohamed, A. A. Khalil, A. Teleb· Journal of Language Teaching...· 0 citations
English-medium instruction (EMI) has expanded across Bangladeshi higher education as a marker of academic quality, internationalisation, and graduate employability. Yet the institutional promotion of English does not necessarily translate into sustained English-medium classroom interaction or improved opportunities for students’ language development. This qualitative multiple-case study examines how EMI is interpreted, negotiated, and enacted across three private universities in Bangladesh. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews with six teachers of content-oriented English-department courses and 18 final-year undergraduate students, three student focus-group discussions, and three classroom observations. The dataset was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, supported by iterative coding, memo writing, within-case analysis, and cross-case comparison. Findings indicate that EMI functioned less as a stable English-only instructional model than as a negotiated bilingual practice shaped by uneven English proficiency, time constraints, and institutional expectations. Teachers used Bangla to clarify difficult concepts, sustain interaction, and support comprehension, while students valued English for its academic and professional benefits but often experienced English-only instruction as limiting confidence, participation, and access to disciplinary knowledge. Bilingual mediation, however, rarely formed part of a systematic approach to academic-English development. The central tension therefore lies not simply in teachers’ departure from English-only instruction, but in universities’ expectation that EMI will deliver both disciplinary learning and English proficiency without adequate linguistic, pedagogical, and assessment support. Conceptualising this tension as the EMI institutional promise–practice paradox, the study argues for a linguistically responsive model that combines planned bilingual scaffolding, explicit disciplinary-language development, language-sensitive assessment, and sustained teacher support. By showing how bilingual mediation both sustains and complicates EMI, the study contributes to debates on multilingual pedagogy, linguistic equity, and institutional responsibility in multilingual higher education.
Sultana Jahan· ICRRD Quality Index Research...· 0 citations