Reconceptualizing English-medium instruction as policy enactment
Teacher agency and multilingual practice in low-resource contexts
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24216679 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Precious Nyoni (0009-0009-1698-4108, Zhejiang Normal University), Jian Zhu (0000-0003-0532-4269, Zhejiang Normal University), Manirahari Philogene (Southwest University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-23 |
| Publication date | 2026-09-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Current Issues in Language Planning (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1466-4208 • E-ISSN: 1747-7506 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14664208.2026.2737978 |
| OpenAlex | W7214311541 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 39 |
English-medium instruction (EMI) policies are often formulated through monolingual assumptions despite multilingual classroom realities. Although EMI research recognizes teachers as policy actors, less is known about how policy enactment, teacher agency, street-level discretion, and multilingual pedagogy interact in low-resource primary schools in sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on policy enactment theory, ecological accounts of teacher agency, street-level bureaucracy, and language-policy scholarship on practiced and negotiated policy, this qualitative multiple-case study examined EMI enactment in three public primary schools in Malawi. Data comprised 20 semi-structured interviews with teachers, headteachers, and district education officials, 30 classroom observations, and 10 policy and school documents. Reflexive thematic analysis identified five conditions shaping enactment: material constraints, uneven access to English, teacher English proficiency, pedagogical preparation, and institutional ambiguity. Teachers responded through planned and responsive multilingual practices, including bilingual explanation, translanguaging, language alternation, scaffolding, and peer mediation. These practices preserved English as the authoritative language while making content accessible. The study conceptualizes EMI not as a fixed English-only model but as recursively negotiated policy-in-practice. Its contribution is to integrate insights on teacher policy-making and translanguaging into a context-sensitive model of EMI enactment in Malawian primary education, showing multilingual practices as mechanisms of street-level policy mediation under constraint.
English-medium instruction · language alternation · Language policy · Malawi · multilingual pedagogy · peer mediation · policy enactment · scaffolding · street-level bureaucracy · Sub-Saharan Africa · teacher agency · teacher English proficiency · Translanguaging · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Multilingual Education and Policy · Second Language Learning and Teaching
How Schools Do Policy
Pedagogical Translanguaging
Translanguaging
Negotiating Language Policies in Schools
Pedagogical translanguaging
Translanguaging as a vehicle for epistemic access
The Evolution of English Medium Instruction Research in Higher Education
Towards models of language supportive pedagogy in Sub-Saharan Africa
Teacher professional identities and their impacts on translanguaging pedagogies in a STEM EMI classroom context in China
The teacher as street-level bureaucrat
Legitimizing multilingual practices in the classroom
Revisiting the ‘E’ in EMI
‘Smuggling the vernacular into the classroom’
A systematic review of English medium instruction in higher education
Power and agency in language policy appropriation
For the Dutch-speaking students, I will translate it
Exploring the potential for language supportive learning in English medium instruction
The Language Planning Situation in Malawi
The EMI content lecturer as a street-level bureaucrat
Teachers’ transformative agency in English-medium instruction in higher education in Vietnam
Navigating Authoritative Discourses in a Multilingual Classroom
The new language of instruction policy in Malawi
Taking context seriously
Where you stand depends on where you sit
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |