English as a medium of instruction in Singapore higher education

The opening sections of this chapter trace the development of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education from the late 1940s and the foundation of the University of Malaya, through to the post-colonial era following independence in 1965 and Singapore’s current era of a globally-competitive...

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Main Authors: Bolton, Kingsley, Botha, Werner
Other Authors: Fenton-Smith, Ben
Format: Book Chapter
Language:English
Published: Springer 2020
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/138579
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1385792020-05-12T02:34:48Z English as a medium of instruction in Singapore higher education Bolton, Kingsley Botha, Werner Fenton-Smith, Ben Humphreys, Pamela Walkinshaw, Ian School of Humanities Humanities::Language::English Humanities::Linguistics English-medium Instruction Higher Education The opening sections of this chapter trace the development of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education from the late 1940s and the foundation of the University of Malaya, through to the post-colonial era following independence in 1965 and Singapore’s current era of a globally-competitive, knowledge-based economy. One important argument in this context is that the post-independence policy of promoting English within education had strong roots in the colonial language policies of the 1950s. Today, Singapore has six tertiary institutions, all of which maintain a uniform policy of using English as the sole medium of instruction. The later sections of the chapter focus on the contemporary context of higher education, where scientific, technological, and vocational education has been promoted to serve the needs of a knowledge-based economy that has been developed to be highly competitive on the world stage. Despite the official policy on EMI throughout education in Singapore, from a sociolinguistic perspective it is also important to consider the wider multilingual ecology of the Singapore society, and the often complex multilingual worlds of university students, which are characterised by code-switching from more formal registers of English in the classroom to the use of Colloquial Singapore English, Malay, Mandarin and Indian languages in the corridors and cafeterias of universities throughout Singapore. Accepted version 2020-05-09T12:55:18Z 2020-05-09T12:55:18Z 2017 Book Chapter Bolton, K., & Botha, W. (2017). English as a medium of instruction in Singapore higher education. In B. Fenton-Smith, P. Humphreys, & I. Walkinshaw (Eds.), English medium instruction in higher education in Asia-Pacific : from policy to pedagogy (pp. 133-152). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-51976-0_8 978-3-319-51974-6 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/138579 10.1007/978-3-319-51976-0_8 133 152 en 2016-T1-001-160-05 English medium instruction in higher education in Asia-Pacific : from policy to pedagogy © 2017 Springer International Publishing AG. All rights reserved. This book is made available with permission of Springer International Publishing AG. application/pdf Springer
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Humanities::Language::English
Humanities::Linguistics
English-medium Instruction
Higher Education
spellingShingle Humanities::Language::English
Humanities::Linguistics
English-medium Instruction
Higher Education
Bolton, Kingsley
Botha, Werner
English as a medium of instruction in Singapore higher education
description The opening sections of this chapter trace the development of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education from the late 1940s and the foundation of the University of Malaya, through to the post-colonial era following independence in 1965 and Singapore’s current era of a globally-competitive, knowledge-based economy. One important argument in this context is that the post-independence policy of promoting English within education had strong roots in the colonial language policies of the 1950s. Today, Singapore has six tertiary institutions, all of which maintain a uniform policy of using English as the sole medium of instruction. The later sections of the chapter focus on the contemporary context of higher education, where scientific, technological, and vocational education has been promoted to serve the needs of a knowledge-based economy that has been developed to be highly competitive on the world stage. Despite the official policy on EMI throughout education in Singapore, from a sociolinguistic perspective it is also important to consider the wider multilingual ecology of the Singapore society, and the often complex multilingual worlds of university students, which are characterised by code-switching from more formal registers of English in the classroom to the use of Colloquial Singapore English, Malay, Mandarin and Indian languages in the corridors and cafeterias of universities throughout Singapore.
author2 Fenton-Smith, Ben
author_facet Fenton-Smith, Ben
Bolton, Kingsley
Botha, Werner
format Book Chapter
author Bolton, Kingsley
Botha, Werner
author_sort Bolton, Kingsley
title English as a medium of instruction in Singapore higher education
title_short English as a medium of instruction in Singapore higher education
title_full English as a medium of instruction in Singapore higher education
title_fullStr English as a medium of instruction in Singapore higher education
title_full_unstemmed English as a medium of instruction in Singapore higher education
title_sort english as a medium of instruction in singapore higher education
publisher Springer
publishDate 2020
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/138579
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