1 Introduction

The continuing development of bilingual education in North America and Europe over the last decade (e.g. Coyle et al., 2010; Mehisto, 2012) has prompted the rise of strong forms of bilingual education (Baker, 2006) beyond these continents (cf. Kim & Lee, 2020; Wei & Feng, 2015; Yang, 2015). One strong form of bilingual education in the Chinese mainland, commonly known as Chinese–English bilingual education where English is used as a medium of instruction in non-language subject-matter courses, has received scholarly attention in the past decade. Chinese-English bilingual education at the tertiary level is often referred to as English-medium instruction (EMI) (cf. Zhao & Dixon, 2017). In terms of exposure to instruction through the target language (English in this case), we distinguish between very-high-exposure EMI and other categories of EMI, which is consistent with the categorisation for Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programmes in China (see Wei, 2013).

Important topics concerning Chinese–English bilingual education in the Chinese context have been explored, which range from classroom pedagogy (e.g. Hoare, 2010) to different stakeholder groups including parents (e.g. Wei, 2011), students (e.g. Kong & Wei, 2019; Tong & Shi, 2012; Wei, Ma, & Feng, 2017), and teachers (e.g. Kong et al., 2011). However, EMI research is still in “the infancy stage” (Wei et al., 2017, p. 54); it is worth noting that the academic discussion about EMI has unfortunately been “long on claims and short on empirical research” (Wei, 2011: 482). The present study aims to contribute some empirical evidence concerning teachers’ use of L1, an important topic under-investigated in the Chinese context. The importance of this topic can be reflected in the fact that some conceptual models (e.g. Baetens Beardsmore, 2009; Baker, 1996) have listed teachers’ classroom language use (including possible L1 use) as one of the key factors impinging upon the effectiveness of any EMI programme. As only a very limited number of studies (e.g. Wang & Curdt-Christiansen, 2019) have examined teachers’ use of L1 in the Chinese context, our study endeavours to contribute more empirical data to this topic.

In the remainder of this chapter, before reviewing the relevant literature, we first present an introduction to the wider context (e.g. local language policy relating to EMI). After reporting upon the specific research setting (viz. one Sino-foreign university) and the methods and procedures employed in this study, we present findings on the main types of L1 adoption by the two non-native English speaking EMI teachers in an undergraduate applied linguistics module, and conclude with their language-in-education policy implications and possible directions for future research. Specifically, we situate our findings of L1 adoption via the perspective of translanguaging (García & Li, 2014), and argue that L1 use by the EMI teachers is often strategic and extend beyond purely linguistic concerns, so as to cater for optimal pedagogical practices.

2 National and Local Policy Documents Relating to EMI

The provision of bilingual education involving a foreign medium of instruction (e.g. EMI or French-medium instruction) for majority-language students in China had been far from uncommon prior to the founding of the People’s Republic of China (henceforth China) in 1949 (cf. Chen & Jin, 2003; Fu, 1986). Although this provision was discontinued by the Communist regime in the early 1950s, it began to return to the public education sector half a century later (Wei, 2011), when Shanghai became the first region in the Chinese mainland to experiment with EMI (more often called “Chinese-English bilingual education” in local policy documents).

At the pre-tertiary level, there have been two waves of development. The first wave started in Shanghai in 1999 as a regional government-organised endeavour at public schools (Wei, 2009), began to stall since 2005 (Wei, 2013) and has to date come to a halt. The second wave of EMI, sometimes labelled as CLIL (Gong, 2015), has been promoted by local governments in some cities (e.g. Zhangjiagang City, in Jiangsu Province) and by many schools (Kong & Wei, 2019). Overall speaking, pre-tertiary EMI at best has received official endorsement from the regional level.

In sharp contrast, since 2001, EMI at the tertiary level has gained consistent policy support from state departments (e.g. the Ministry of Finance). In the very first national-level policy document where EMI and other foreign-language medium instruction are mentioned, it is proposed that “actively promoting teaching through foreign languages such as English” be one of the twelve guidelines to improve the undergraduate-level teaching quality nationwide (Ministry of Education, 2001); under this general guideline, more specific measures are proposed; one measure is that some majors are encouraged to “take the lead and try their best to teach 5%–10% of their courses through a foreign language for the next three years to come”; another measure is to allow “universities and majors that do not yet have the resources to teach through a foreign language verbally” to “use foreign-medium teaching materials in part of courses with the verbal teaching medium still being Chinese” (Ministry of Education, 2001). It is noteworthy that this policy document does not impose uniform requirements on all universities and majors, but instead, it allows under-resourced institutions to provide EMI in a phased manner; however, the flexibility allowed in the above-cited document is seldom mentioned, and the Ministry of Education’ intentions are often misrepresented in the English-language literature (see Wei, 2013 for a critique of the unfortunate lack of precision in recounting the policy measures). Since the promulgation of the 2001 document, consistent policy documents (e.g. Ministry of Education, 2004, 2009; Ministry of Education & Ministry of Finance, 2010) have been issued, lending support—financial and otherwise—to the promotion of EMI in universities. Although no statistics from government sources are available to show how many universities out of the 2500+ Chinese tertiary institutions offer EMI, one survey of the websites of “key” universities (i.e. all of the 116 institutions included in Project 211 by the Ministry of Education) finds that over 80% of them claimed to provide EMI courses (Kong, 2017). As regards whether there is a guiding policy document concerning EMI, the answer varies from university to university (Wei, 2019); at the university where the present study was conducted, there is a language policy document designating English as the main teaching medium (see also the Research Setting section below).

3 Literature Review

Teachers’ use of L1 is an important and complex research topic in bilingualism research (as well as in the wider field of applied linguistics). There are two major competing theoretical frameworks: the interactionist perspective and the sociocultural theory one (Ellis, 2018). The former underscores the need for ensuring that students receive maximum exposure to L2 input, while the latter sees the L1 as a useful cognitive tool for scaffolding L2 production and for private speech on the part of students. More recent research on L1 use has shifted to a translanguaging perspective (Canagarajah, 2011; García & Li, 2014) which suggests that bilingual/multilingual language users access “different linguistic features or various modes of what are described as autonomous languages, in order to maximize communicative potential” (García, 2009, p. 140). Instead of viewing languages as separate linguistic systems, a translanguaging perspective does not strictly distinguish between languages but argues that all meaning-making resources, either linguistically or via other semiotic means, form our communicative repertoire in various types of communication events.

Researchers respectively informed by these frameworks have formed two camps. Those in one camp argue against the use of the L1 in foreign language and bilingual education contexts; for example, Ellis (1984) maintains that the teacher should use the students’ L1 as little as possible in order to maximise students’ exposure to L2 input; the three assumptions underlying two-way bilingual immersion programmes delineated by Cummins (2005) are (1) instruction should be exclusively in the target language (viz. L2), (2) translation should be avoided, and (3) the two languages should be kept strictly separate. In contrast, researchers in the other camp argue for the value of L1 when used in a judicious manner; for instance, Cook (2001) recommends that teachers use the L1 to explain grammar, organise tasks, discipline student, and implement tests, who argues that code-switching is a natural and normal phenomenon in settings where speakers have a shared language. Based on a re-analysis of the teacher’s discourse data collected in the 1980s during a Science lesson at an Anglo-Chinese secondary school in Hong Kong SAR of China, Lin (2009) vividly illustrates the positive role of L1 in a supposedly EMI classroom and argues for flexible use of code-switching and/or code-mixing in teaching subject matter through a foreign language. Most recently, García-Mateus and Palmer (2017, p. 245) argue that strictly separating the language of instruction appears to inhibit both emergent bilinguals’ development of positive identities and their willingness to take linguistic risks and engage in critical discussions.

Given the importance of this research topic, many empirical studies have investigated teachers’ L1 use in the past four decades. However, most of the extant studies taking place in settings ranging from L2 learning classrooms (e.g. Mahboob & Lin, 2016) to content-based EMI classrooms (e.g. Tavares, 2015 for the subject of mathematics) have been conducted outside the Chinese mainland, where the number of English learners/users already exceeded 390 million in 2000 according to the best available government statistics (Wei & Su, 2012). There is evidence indicating that this number of English-knowing Chinese bilinguals is on the rise (cf. Wei & Su, 2015). In other words, the Chinese mainland represents an important but under-investigated context for the investigation of teachers’ L1 use in EMI classrooms; until now, empirical research on teachers’ L1 use in EMI classrooms has been very limited. Only two recent studies from within the Chinese mainland are highly relevant to the present study.

The first study, Wang (2019), addresses the reality and complexity of emergent translanguaging in foreign language classrooms, by focussing on a group of international students studying Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua) as a foreign language (CFL) programmes in Beijing. She identifies three types of translanguaging pedagogy in CFL classrooms: (1) explanatory strategies, which are initiated by teachers so as to provide cognitive or metalinguistic scaffolding for meaning-making activities (e.g. explaining and elaborating grammar rules and lexical uses, translating new words, and interpreting cultural meaning), (2) managerial strategies which are also initiated by teachers in order to provide operational classroom instructions (e.g. giving instructions for an activity, giving feedback, praising, disapproving, checking the comprehension of learning content, and planning assignments), and (3) interpersonal strategies which are mostly initiated by students who often interact with each other using multiple languages to translate questions raised by teachers to classmates sitting nearby. Her study reveals the huge challenges posed to the monolingual teaching approach, which prevails in most CFL classrooms, by the influx of international students into the often linguistically diverse classrooms where the students do not share the same L1. Although in the CFL classroom, the language (English) which the teachers resorted to was not the international students’ L1, it was a vehicle language other than the target language (Chinese). In this sense, Wang’s (2019) study is relevant to our study, which concerns to what extent the teachers resorted to a vehicle language (students’ L1 Chinese) that is different from the target language (English) in an EMI setting.

The second study, Wang and Curdt-Christiansen (2019), examines the practices of Chinese–English bilingual education in an undergraduate Business Management Programme at one university in the Chinese mainland. This study, notwithstanding being a classroom ethnography with few statistics, reveals that translanguaging is a prominent phenomenon in almost all subject courses in the focal university. These researchers suggest that translanguaging practices can be largely grouped into four categories: bilingual label quest, simultaneous code-mixing, cross-language recapping, and dual-language substantiation. While Wang and Curdt-Christiansen (2019, p. 331) acknowledge that “flexible practices” in terms of exposure to English are implemented, they simply report that it is “difficult to quantify the respective percentages of English or Chinese used in any one class or course” (p. 326) in their focal university. We argue that the EMI practices in Wang and Curdt-Christiansen’s (2019) study fall within the medium to highFootnote 1-exposure EMI category, based on what is implied by these authors (e.g. the name changing of the programme from All-English to bilingual education) and our understanding of the local Chinese university context. In other words, in very-high exposure EMI settings, to date there has been no research on teachers’ use of L1.

Accordingly, we seek to address this research question: in very-high exposure EMI settings, what types of L1 use can be identified?

4 The Study

4.1 Research Setting

The present study took place in Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), which, established in 2006, is the largest Sino-foreign institution in China. In the academic year of 2020–21, it has attracted nearly 5,500 students from within China and abroad to commence their studies, amongst who over 4,400 are freshman undergraduates. XJTLU aspires to be a research-led international university, in keeping with the spirit of its parents, Xi’an Jiaotong University (China) and the University of Liverpool (UK). It has dual degree awarding powers, from the Chinese Ministry of Education and from the University of Liverpool. A student who completes his/her undergraduate study will receive both a Chinese degree and a UK degree. Unsurprisingly, in XJTLU’s policy documents; for instance, in Framework for Undergraduate Programmes, it is stipulated that “All modules at levels 0, 1, 2, and 3 must be taught and assessed in English. Exemptions may be permitted at level 0. Language modules may be taught and assessed in the relevant language.”; similarly in Framework for Postgraduate Programmes, the requirement that “The language of teaching and assessment shall be English” can be found.

XJTLU, similar to many of its counterparts examined in previous studies (e.g. Wang & Curdt-Christiansen, 2019; Wu et al., 2010) falls within the category of yiben (一本) or first-tier universitiesFootnote 2; in other words, it has quality students recruited from the competitive national college entrance examination. However, XJTLU also differs from its counterparts in earlier research in two ways. First, it is a Sino-foreign university, which is similar to a private joint venture company in terms of governance, rather than a public education institution. Second, regarding history which is usually considered as a core attribute of an institution’s prestige, our focal university enjoys a shorter history (i.e. around 15 years) compared with the university in Tong and Shi’s (2012) case study which has a history of over 100 years.

4.2 Participants and Data Collection

The present study, conducted over one academic semester from September to December 2019, was the first part of a larger project that is still on-going. Both authors worked at the same department in the university and co-taught the module, ENG 115 English as a Global Language. A total of 50 Year 2 undergraduate students were formally enrolled in this Level 1 module, and another 28 MA TESOL students at XJTLU audited the lecture part of this undergraduate module as part of their postgraduate additional learning activities. None of these students were international students, and they shared a common L1, Mandarin Chinese. It was anticipated that the presence of international students in the classrooms of ENG115 might affect the teachers’ use of L1 in XJTLU’s EMI setting. In the second part of the above-mentioned larger project that is taking place at the time of writing, data from a total of 74 undergraduates enrolled in ENG115 in the current semester are now being collected, amongst whom two are international students with little knowledge in Chinese.

With the purpose of investigating the use of L1 (Chinese) in an EMI context, we adopted an emic research approach and immersed ourselves into the teaching context by documenting our own teaching practice. During one academic semester, ten lectures (2 h each) and ten seminars (1 h each) were recorded, accounting for a total of 30 h of teaching. The first author (teacher 1) taught the first four lectures and seminars and the second author (teacher 2) completed the remaining sessions. Both teachers, with Mandarin Chinese as their L1, have had tertiary EMI teaching experience over four years in China and overseas, and are experts in terms of the subject knowledge of applied linguistics as well as English in an academic context and beyond. The spoken data of two teachers were transcribed for further analysis in terms of how L1 was applied during teaching.

4.3 Data Analysis

Analyzing the transcript of the spoken data, we focused on the instances of L1 Chinese adoptions amid lectures and seminars which were mainly taught in English, compatible with the overarching EMI context of the university. Inspired by the previous studies of Wang (2019) and Wang and Curdt-Christiansen (2019), the sampled cases of L1 use were further coded based on the emerging themes guided by teachers’ communicative purposes, leading to the generation of four major types of L1 use. The data analysis was conducted by multiple rounds of examining, highlighting and annotating the transcript. The first author coded the data, which were later checked by the second author. For any uncertain coding, both authors discussed these cases and reached a final agreement.

5 Findings

5.1 Types of L1 Use in an EMI Context

In the 30 h of teaching sessions, it was observed that both teachers involved were flexible regarding the use of L1 during teaching. At first glance, the instances of L1 use seem random, as they were identified in various scenarios, such as in the process of theory/terminology explanations, demonstrating examples, checking students’ understanding of both linguistically or domain-specific challenging expressions or concepts. However, a more in-depth analysis reveals four major types of L1 use that reflect the teachers’ communicative and pedagogical purposes. In the following sections, we discuss these four main types of L1 by demonstrating corresponding excerpts of teaching by both subject-matter teachers.

5.2 Adopting L1 for Domain-Specific Knowledge

In many cases, both teachers have adopted L1 Chinese when terminologies, notions and important concepts specifically related to the field of applied linguistics or the module ENG 115 were introduced. For instance, the teacher would introduce a terminology in the field of applied linguistics in English first, and then immediately provide the matching Chinese of this terminology. In other words, the translated part of the English information is “domain-specific” to the target subject-matter. The example below demonstrates a typical case of adopting L1 for domain-specific knowledge as the teacher explains the statistical terminologies of conducting qualitative and quantitative applied linguistics research (Example 1).

Example 1

Teacher 2: “Do they publish more qualitative or quantitative study? The findings of this research provide you with some messages, although this research covers this period, OK? Quite some time ago, but it can still send you a rough idea. They want to look at the proportion of qualitative research, 质性, 质性研究 (qualitative, qualitative research). I’ve talked about quantitative research, 量化研究 (quantitative research).”

(11/11/2019)

In the example above, the teachers explained the terms of “qualitative research” and “quantitative research” in statistics that are related to empirical applied linguistics research in English first and provided the matching Chinese expressions adjacent to English. These cases of L1 adoptions are short in terms of utterance length and targeted at terminologies, notions and concepts of applied linguistics and the module content. This quick alternation of language choices provides both linguistic and subject-matter knowledge support for the students, thus avoiding potential misunderstandings or missing of information due to unfamiliarity with the English expressions or related knowledge of empirical applied linguistics research. At the same time, terminologies and notions that are more related to the module and its textbook information, rather than applied linguistics knowledge, were also provided with matching Chinese, such as another example below:

Example 2

Teacher 1: “Well, here’s a new word, a history of apartheid. Apartheid is 种族隔离 (segregation of races).”

(10/14/2019)

In Example 2, L1 was adopted for a specific terminology, “apartheid”, which was mentioned in the module textbook. This expression is not specifically related to applied linguistics research; nevertheless, the teacher made a decision for L1 use as the focal terminology potentially may pose challenges to the students’ understanding of the lecture. A similar type of L1 use has been observed in the study by Wang and Curdt-Christiansen (2019) as “bilingual label request.” We intentionally modified this category by highlighting the focal feature of domain-specific, as well as avoiding the possible implied duality of language choices.

In the retrospective investigation, it became clearer to us that both teachers were making decisions of adopting this type of L1 use based on the level of complexity of the terminologies, notions and concepts related to the module, as well as their ongoing observation of students’ classroom reactions. In other words, such decisions were made owning to the teachers’ expert knowledge of the subject matter as well as their awareness of the students’ here-and-now learning experience.

5.3 Complementing English with L1

The teachers often complemented EMI lectures and seminars with L1. This practice refers to the strategy of adopting both English and Chinese for separate parts of utterances during teaching. In other words, the teacher would produce a string of utterances in both languages with each responsible for different information. To follow and understand the teachers on such occasions, the students would need to combine information from both languages for a full understanding of meaning. The example below shows a representative case of such practice.

Example 3

Teacher 1: “These are the ASEAN countries. And I presume that you know their working language is English. I skip Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, and 老挝 (Laos), Cambodia, 越南 (Vietnam). OK.”

(10/28/2019)

The case above clearly shows that the teacher constantly alternated between English and Chinese in his utterances. The two languages carry different information, and only by combining the utterances from both languages can students perceive the message entirely. This type of L1 use can often be identified when the teachers were attempting to provide examples to further illustrate a concept or terminology. In some cases, the use of L1 can be quite intensive with longer utterances and higher frequencies of language alternation, as the teachers endeavor to situate theories and concepts via real-life examples (see Example 4 below).

Example 4

Teacher 2: “Very small p means that, wow, 真的差异会存在或者关系会存在 (indeed, differences or association exist), but how big is the difference or how strong is the association? Look at r, r is the effect size here. 在这里要举一个例子, 让你看看如果不汇报这个r会有什么后果呢? (Here I shall provide one example, to show you what the consequences are if this r is not reported.) 假设这个研究没有汇报effect size这一栏, 你只看到一堆p, 就会有一个错觉 (Let’s assume that this study does not generate this column for effect sizes, and you will have an illusion): 比如说, 前面三个城市, 这个是它跟全国的比较, 这个是它跟全国的比较, 这个是它跟全国的比较, one-sample t-test 的结果 (Take the first three cities as examples: This is the comparison between its mean and the national average [Teacher pointing to the column of results for City X]; this is the comparison between its mean and the national average [Teacher pointing to the column of results for City Y]; this is the comparison between its mean and the national average [Teacher pointing to the column of results for City Z]; each of these columns contains the results from a one-sample t-test.). 你看到这三个同样的p 觉得, 这三个城市给你的感觉是同等厉害, 因为它的p一样嘛 (If you are only given the same three p values, the illusion is that these three cities are equally impressive). This is a misunderstanding. If you have effect size, you will notice that 谁更厉害 (which is more impressive)? The effect size range is between zero to one; the bigger the effect size, the larger the effect.”

(11/11/2019)

In Example 4, the teacher applied L1 for the purpose of utilizing real-life examples to explain the concept of “effect size.” Different from the features of the first type of L1 adoption, the teacher used L1 for the most part of his utterance, with only a few English expressions inserted, such as “effect size” and “t-test”. The above example, as explained by the teacher, was produced also due to the convenience of explanation from the teacher’s point of view. In other words, as a bilingual himself, the teacher deliberately chose to shuttle between languages for more efficient teaching to his judgment.

This second type of L1 use is similar to the notion of “complementary code-switching” which can be found in multilingual signage (e.g. Sebba, 2013) or other communicative practices by multilinguals (Zhang, 2021). Similarly, in the case of teaching within an EMI context, the use of complementary languages is transient and flexible, and it is constantly shaped and utilized by the teachers. Ultimately, the purpose of such language alternation was to further ensure students’ optimal understanding of the taught content, considering their current English language proficiency and subject-matter knowledge.

5.4 L1 Recast

Another type of Chinese adoption is L1 recast, which refers to the situation when an utterance was firstly produced in English and then repeated in Chinese. This type of L1 adoption is the least frequent one of the identified categories. In some cases, the teachers would provide an utterance, which is usually longer and not domain-specific (different from the first type “adopting L1 for domain-specific knowledge”), and then offer an identical sentence in Chinese. At first sight, this is similar to Wang and Curdt-Christiansen’s (2019) notion of “cross-language recapping”; however, different from the bilingual education context described in Wang and Curdt-Christiansen’s (2019) study, no instances of starting classes with L1 Chinese or utterances longer than single sentences were identified in our EMI context. Instances of this type of L1 use are demonstrated in Examples 5 and 6 below:

Example 5

Teacher 1: “So there are various reasons for people to choose to learn, to put English importance in language policy. For example, Georgia, guys you know the conflicts of Georgia and Russia? 格鲁吉亚跟俄国不是打过吗? You guys don’t read newspapers at all.”

(9/26/2019)

Example 6

Teacher 2: “This sounds like criticising for the sake of criticising. 为了批评而批评. Who told you that this cannot be used as a noun? This is something abstract. Of course, it can be used as an entity.”

(12/5/2019)

In Example 5, we can see that the teacher provided L1 recast of his previous utterance in English as “Georgia, guys you know the conflicts of Georgia and Russia?” and immediately provided a similar Chinese version which is “格鲁吉亚跟俄国不是打过吗” (Didn’t Georgia have a conflict with Russia?) for the students. Specifically, the teacher was trying to explain language choice issues due to political reasons by providing an example of language use and political conflicts between Georgia and Russia. A recast of the English information was offered in Chinese, yet the content of the information is not directly related to that of the subject-matter. Similarly, Teacher 2 also provided an L1 recast immediately after his use of an English saying “criticising for the sake of criticising” to aid students’ understanding. In both examples, the teachers were offering real-life examples in L1 to better facilitate students’ comprehension of applied linguistics knowledge as well as the module content. It is worth mentioning that we deliberately avoid the use of “translation” as the L1 recast does not necessarily “match” the English counterpart. In other words, the teachers were not “fixed” on providing the exact matching linguistic codes in the L1, but focused more on the convey of meaning. Only a few cases were identified for this type of L1 use. This is possibly due to the context of total-exposure EMI, which is contrasted from previous findings of bilingual education and high-exposure EMI context (e.g. Wang, 2019; Wang & Curdt-Christiansen, 2019) where use of L1 has been observed with higher frequency and often in longer utterances, often serving as translation of English content.

5.4.1 Utilizing L1 for Localized Knowledge

The last distinctive type of L1 usage is utilizing Chinese for localized knowledge. This specifically referred to the situation in which the teachers applied examples from the localized Chinese context in L1 to explain English information. This type of L1 adoptions often happened when the teachers attempted to explain complex concepts or theories in applied linguistics in general or research methods. Since the module was designed for Year 2 undergraduate students, they were not yet fully exposed to rigorous study of theories or research; thus, supplementing teaching content with contextualized local knowledge in L1 was deemed helpful by both teachers. A distinction was made against the notion of “dual-language substantiation” by Wang and Curdt-Christiansen (2019) as we would like to avoid the assumption of “duality” of language use in an EMI context as opposed to a bilingual education or high-exposure EMI situation. An example is provided below:

Example 7

Teacher 2: “… It has specific meaning, similar to 情 and 理. She developed the Chinese concept of 情 and 理, meaning I would like to persuade you with reasoning, with 理, also with 情, with empathy, with sympathy, OK? … 动之以情, 晓之以理.”

(10/31/2019)

The context of the above excerpt was that Teacher 2 was explaining the concept of pathos, ethos and logos and how they were represented and analyzed in a research paper. In his explanation, he utilized the traditional notions of 情, meaning empathy and 理, meaning reasoning in Chinese culture to facilitate students’ learning. 情 and 理 as the close matching alternatives of pathos, ethos and logos were utilized as familiar concepts to these Chinese students. It is potentially a pedagogically sound practice to enhance the students’ understanding of the originally distant notions and concept. In addition, the teacher proceeded with further explications of 情 and 理 by presenting a well-known Chinese saying “动之以情, 晓之以理”, meaning “persuade someone sentimentally and rationally.” In this case, the strategy of L1 adoption was extended beyond simple linguistic accessibility and comprehension, and also activation of local knowledge from the students.

This type of L1 use may extend well beyond the students’ knowledge of traditional Chinese culture or history, but also the popular culture of younger generations who are internet-savvy. For instance, Teacher 1 referred to a popular singer/rapper “吴亦凡” (Kris Wu) when he was explaining features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) to the students, demonstrated in the following example:

Example 8

Teacher 1: “For us, who are in a foreign English context, the most cases we hear about the AAEE is either from movies, TV series or rap songs, right? So they have a lot of that, OK? I was listening to the song called 皇帝的新衣. Anyone heard this before? OK. Check it out. It’s a rap song that disses (meaning “trash”) 吴亦, er, Kris Wu.”

(10/14/2019)

In the above example, Teacher 1 mentioned “Kris Wu” (吴亦凡)—the famous singer and rapper familiar to most Chinese students—and a rap song related to him (i.e. “皇帝的新衣”—The Emperor’s New Clothes), to illustrate features of AAVE. With students’ localized knowledge of this singer, as well as related characteristics of hip-hop and rap music, the teacher was in the hope of facilitating students’ understanding of AAVE.

In this way, utilizing both English and Chinese is no longer as simplistic as traditional code-switching or code-mixing in response to students’ lack of L2, but a good practice of teaching that reflects a translanguaging perspective (Canagarajah, 2011; García & Li, 2014). The students’ knowledge of Chinese culture in this example are equally important, if not more, compared with purely linguistic knowledge of Chinese and English. Contradictory with full English immersion, localized knowledge from Chinese, both linguistically and socioculturally, became facilitative resources for learning and teaching in the focal EMI context.

6 Conclusion: Using L1 via a Translanguaging Perspective

The study reveals the strategic use of L1 by subject-matter teachers in a typical EMI classroom in China. Compared with previous research of bilingual education in the Chinese mainland (e.g. Wang, 2019; Wang & Curdt-Christiansen, 2019), English is considered as the academic language for all subjects in the focal institute. The amount of L2 English use, although remains difficult to quantify, was obviously high due to the total exposure EMI language policy and internationalization of the institute in terms of its composition of students and staff, arrangement of teaching, and other relevant factors. Nevertheless, adoptions of L1 were observed in the teaching of the two subject-matter teachers as they strategically shuttled between L1 and L2 for better pedagogical purposes to their understanding (Canagarajah, 2011).

Four types of L1 use, namely adopting L1 for domain-specific knowledge, complementing English with L1, L1 recast and utilizing L1 for localized knowledge were identified from the transcript of teaching by both teachers. Bearing the overarching structure of EMI in mind, the teachers utilized L1 for linguistic, domains-specific and localized knowledge to facilitate teaching sessions in English. This flexible shuttling among languages can be conceptualized via translanguaging (García & Li, 2014). It is also noteworthy that among the four main types of L1 adoptions as translanguaging practices, the motivations of such practices are not always foregrounded with the assumption of students’ lack of English proficiency (Yu, 2017). In other words, it is not a “compromise” when using L1, but a pedagogical decision for better teaching practices, such as the example of utilizing L1 for local knowledge. Such conceptualization and practices of translanguaging demonstrate the value of L1 in EMI teaching and push beyond the existing monolingual views on language use in bilingual education and EMI classes (Wang & Curdt-Christiansen, 2019).

On the other hand, subject-matter teachers, as experts in the field as well as proficient English language users, took initiatives of translanguaging practices and explored practical space of L1 use to facilitate content delivery, notwithstanding the current English-only language policy of the institute. Many cases of L1 adoptions, such as complementing English with L1, could also be attributed to the teachers’ choice of convenient delivery in teaching as a deliberate decision. Being capable bilingual/multilingual themselves, the teachers in the EMI context play an important role in language choices and practices at the meso level. While some of the previous studies focus on translanguaging practices of bilingual education students (e.g. Wang, 2019), our study further reveals the dynamic role of teachers in negotiating L1 resources in a (total-exposure) EMI context. The study contributes to the literature of translanguaging practices in the Chinese mainland and specifically demonstrates the strategic and flexible L1 adoptions in a rarely researched context of EMI focusing on subject-matter teachers.

As a final note, we would like to emphasize that L1 adoptions in content-based instruction are not always focused purely on linguistic issues. It is clear that other purposes, if not more important, manifested through the use of L1 have been considered and realized by the two teachers in our study. These findings are compatible with the core views of translanguaging that flexible and strategic choices of languages from one’s meaning-making repertoire extend beyond linguistic codes, and reaches further to the realization of communicative functions, ideologies, pedagogical applications and more. To put L1 use in a translanguaging perspective, as demonstrated in our study, captures a more complete picture of functions and values of linguistic and other semiotic resources of language use and beyond, such as the students’ localized knowledge. The translanguaging practices demonstrated by the two teachers provide practical and flexible space of L1 use to facilitate content-based instruction, which is beneficial for students’ learning experience. It is hoped that our findings could enable policy-makers, at the focal institute or in similar international universities, to allow more flexibility concerning teachers’ L1 use in EMI classrooms, so as to move beyond the monolingual paradigm when formulating language policies.

In previous studies, researchers have pointed out that the continuing desire of EMI by officials in the Chinese mainland may impede the translanguaging practices and further negative influences on students’ English learning proficiency (Ren et al., 2016; Zhao & Dixon, 2017). Some researchers (e.g. Wang & Curdt-Christiansen, 2019), also argue for a preference of bilingual education over EMI, as the former model has been investigated with facilitative translanguaging practices. We argue, however, that translanguaging practices are also evidenced in the EMI context for better teaching practices, and that resources beyond linguistic considerations are mobilized by subject-matter teachers. Yet we realize that such translanguaging cases may run into challenges in an international university, since classes with a globalized student body may require more knowledge, linguistically and beyond, from the teachers, and it is difficult to find capable teachers that may attend to every student’s linguistic repertoire or other related knowledge. This, however, requires more strategic management of teachers’ linguistic resources and careful design of module content that responds to students of diverse backgrounds.

In addition, we realize that the implementation of EMI requires effort beyond teaching practices and processes. According to Dafouz and Smit’s (2020) ROAD-MAPPING framework, other factors, ranging from policy-making discussion of the role of English, the inter-relationship between academic literacies and academic (disciplinary) culture, various agents involved, to the ongoing influence of internationalisation and glocalisation, need to be further explored and analysed for future EMI development. One obvious direction of inquiry, which was not included in this chapter due to space constraints, is the research of the communication and contestant between the language policy establishment by the stakeholders and the actual practice of language use by EMI teachers. In this chapter, we have mainly focused on the teachers as agents that carried out EMI practices, yet the following are other important agents that require further scholarly attention: the administrative faculty who designs the language policy within and beyond classroom teaching (e.g. Wei & Feng, 2015), parents who possess certain views and expectations regarding the internationalisation of the higher education market (e.g. Wei, 2011), and the macro linguistic environment and legislation of the state (e.g. Wei & Xiong, 2011). When the above various agents were considered simultaneously, a more complete picture could be provided in an attempt to explain the current EMI practices as demonstrated in our chapter. As EMI practitioners and researchers of translanguging, we are in hope of furthering the inquiries relating to EMI via a complex and dynamic framework, such as ROAD-MAPPING, in future research.