ABSTRACT

The investment in English medium instruction (EMI) higher education continues to grow (see for example Graddol, 2006), where it is now estimated that the sector was worth over GBP 17 billion in the UK alone in 2013 (www.britishcouncil.org). Australia too recruits large numbers of international students into their universities estimated to be worth something in the order of AUD 2.6 billion in 2008, when international student numbers peaked (www.theaustralian.com, 2011). However it is not only in Western English-speaking universities where international student registrations continue to climb, but also in EMI universities in post-colonial countries such as India, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. As well, some universities in Mainland China, for example, those that have collaborative overseas partnerships, also teach in English, especially at the postgraduate level. Of course the issue of English language proficiency is not only related to international students entering these countries, but also is related to local students in Anglophone countries whose mother-tongues are not English. Evidence of benchmarked English language proficiency for university study is therefore in high demand and, interestingly, there has been growing disquiet amongst many of these EMI higher education institutions world-wide about the reliability of their mandated and internationally certified English language proficiency test entry scores. Recent and ongoing reports of corruption in the administration of some of these commercial gatekeeping examinations mean universities are becoming increasingly skeptical about such scores (see Watson, 2014). Universities are therefore coping with students who may have very weak levels of English despite ‘passing’ the mandated English language examinations.