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Questions regarding whether a first or a second/foreign language should be used as a medium of instruction (MOI) in schools, and if yes, for whom, and when, have been enthusiastically debated in recent years in Hong Kong and many Southeast Asian societies

This edited volume brings together essays by leading experts exploring different aspects of ethnic minority education in China: among these are the challenges associated with bilingual and trilingual education in Xinjiang and Tibet; Han Chinese reaction to preferential minority education; the role of inland boarding schools for minority students; and the mediation of religion and culture in mul¬tiethnic schools. The book covers these topics from a range of different perspectives: Uyghur, Tibetan, Korean, Mongolian, Han, and those of the West, combining empirical field studies with theoretical approaches. Previous scholarship has explored the pedagogical and policy challenges of minority education in China; this is the first volume to recast these problems in the light of the Chinese party-state’s efforts to create ethnic harmony and stability through a shared sense of national belonging.

The complexity and diversity of the linguistic situations, practices, policies and theories of bilingual education is widely acknowledged in a country with a population of 1.3 billion people consisting of 56 officially recognised indigenous nationalities speaking more than 80 languages. This book addresses this complexity and diversity with a comprehensive examination of issues in bilingual education for both minority and majority nationalities in China and explores the links between the two major forms of bilingual education. It includes voices that are 'emic' or 'etic', local or international, and voices that come from those who work at the forefront of bilingual education or in the development of theory. All these voices are needed as different and divergent perspectives represent a reality

China has huge ethnic minorities - over 40 different groups with a total population of over 100 million. Over time China's policies towards minority languages have varied, changing from policies which have accommodated minority languages to policies which have encouraged integration. At present integrationist policies predominate, notably in the education system, where instruction in minority languages is being edged out in favour of instruction in Mandarin Chinese. This book assesses the current state of indigenous and minority language policy in China. It considers especially language policy in the education system, including in higher education, and provides detailed case studies of how particular ethnic minorities are being affected by the integrationist, or assimilationist, approach.

The article reports on research that questions commonsense understandings of a bilingual pedagogy predicated on what Cummins (2005, 2008) refers to as the \"two solitudes\" assumption (2008, p. 65). It sets out to describe a flexible bilingual approach to language teaching and learning in Chinese and Gujarati community language schools in the United Kingdom. The authors argue for a release from monolingual instructional approaches and advocate teaching bilingual children by means of bilingual instructional strategies, in which two or more languages are used alongside each other. In developing this argument, the article takes a language ecology perspective and seeks to describe the interdependence of skills and knowledge across languages. (Verlag, adapt.).

Aims To evaluate the implementation effect of Chinese-English bilingual instruction in endocrinology system courses. Methods Students in the endocrine course with bilingual Chinese-English instruction form the experimental group (Group B, n  = 581), while those with traditional Chinese teaching serve as the control group (Group A, n  = 574). The effectiveness of bilingual instruction was evaluated through theoretical tests and questionnaires. Results The theoretical test results showed that Group B, which received bilingual instruction, had higher scores than Group A, which received traditional Chinese instruction. This indicates that bilingual instruction can enhance students’ understanding and performance in endocrinology courses. The two groups were confirmed to have a comparable level of English proficiency at the baseline, with no significant difference in the passing rate of the National College English Test Band 4 (Group A: 81.7%; Group B: 82.3%; p  = 0.87). Most students believed that bilingual instruction was necessary and that the teaching reform had clear objectives. The students also highlighted the importance of their English proficiency and the need for effective teaching methods. Conclusions The results show that bilingual teaching plays a positive role in improving students’ professional knowledge and English proficiency and stimulating learning interests. However, there are also polarization problems caused by differences in students’ English foundations.

Background Entering the 21st century, the Chinese government has vigorously promoted bilingual education in higher education (HE) to better integrate with the global world and enhance international competitiveness. The overall effect of bilingual immunology teaching in China has not been assessed. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis aim to review and evaluate the efficacy of bilingual immunology teaching in universities/colleges in China. Methods A systematic search of the Chinese Science Citation Database of China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang database, VIP database, SinoMed, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library, PubMed, and two key academic search engines was conducted to collect studies published from 2001 to July 18, 2025. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement was followed to guide the reporting of the study selection process. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the MINORS for non-randomized studies. Meta-analyses were conducted using Cochrane’s Review Manager 5.3 software and Stata17.0 software based on random effects models. Results A total of nine studies with 939 students were included in this study. Results showed that implementation of bilingual teaching significantly enhanced the percentage of students with a course score above 80 [RD = 0.59, 95% CI (0.39,0.80), p  < 0.001], the professional English proficiency [RD = 0.59, 95% CI (0.29,0.90), p  < 0.001], and the ability of English application [RD = 0.36, 95%CI (0.13, 0.59), p  = 0.003]. Due to the number and quality of included studies, the findings need to be confirmed by more high-quality studies in the future. Conclusion Bilingual immunology instruction constitutes a highly effective pedagogical strategy that enhances students’ academic performance, professional English proficiency, and capacity to apply discipline-specific terminology. This approach fosters the expansion of students’ international perspectives and promotes greater adaptability in global academic and professional contexts.

This qualitative study investigates the experiences of students in an English as a medium of instruction (EMI) program at a comprehensive university in China and how they construct identity and negotiate legitimacy in the interaction between Western and Eastern traditions and systems in the internationalization of higher education. It finds that this focal EMI program is operated in a combined model of Western systems with local sociocultural and political influences and historical traditions. It also finds that uncertainty and contradiction experienced by both academic staff and students when flexible bilingual teaching are adopted. The findings indicate that internationalization in higher education, despite its ideologically motivated nature, may produce curricular homogeneity but also creates a heterogeneous context of cultures and values and promotes critical understanding of internationalization, globalization, and diversity among students. It is also found that the privilege-afforded EMI students may constrain their future options and lead to identity ambivalence. This investigation is of significance to universities in East Asia that have promoted themselves as world-class universities by implementing internationalization and benchmarking themselves in relation to top universities in English-speaking countries.

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of bilingual learning strategies designed to support Chinese undergraduate business students facing significant learning challenges in an Australian university capstone curriculum delivered at their Chinese university. These challenges include the students' difficulty understanding discipline-specific English terminology, using this terminology to discuss disciplinary concepts with their instructors and stress caused by an abnormally high study load. In response to these challenges, the project team implemented a suite of bilingual strategies to reduce cognitive load and enhance learning, which included Chinese-English glossaries to build disciplinary- specific vocabularies; a bilingual teaching assistant to enable students to communicate in their language of choice; the use of WeChat to connect students to staff and to provide translanguaging opportunities; and bilateral managerial and academic support for strengthening the institutional cross-cultural relationship through staff exchange and language learning programs. A series of surveys were administered to measure the impact of these strategies on students' learning, and WeChat logs were analysed to determine students' linguistic preferences during discussions with staff and students. The results of this project show strong support for each bilingual strategy, high academic performance amongst the student cohort, the positive contribution to learning and connection provided by social media technology, students' language of choice preferences and chosen translanguaging styles and the important role of teaching staff in supporting international students' intercultural learning and adaptation to a foreign university learning system. This original evidence-based study helps to address the gap in bilingual education in Australian higher education demonstrating a successful strategy for dealing with language and discipline-specific challenges confronting EAL students. [Author abstract]

Hong Kong’s ‘trilingual and biliterate’ language policy (TaB, 三語兩文 ) is almost as old as the special administrative region (SAR) itself. Through free education and language support measures in school, students are expected to be conversant in English and Putonghua in addition to Cantonese, and be able to read and understand written Chinese and English. After being implemented for over two decades, however, there are signs that most students’ language standards in Chinese and English fall short of the TaB target, as measured by the public examination results of successive generations of secondary school leavers. Designed with essentially Cantonese-dominant Hongkongers in mind, the TaB policy consists of many measures, with the ‘medium of instruction streaming policy’ introduced since September 1998 being the most controversial. Driven by the twin principles of monolingual English-medium instruction (EMI) and ‘no language mixing allowed’, secondary schools are divided into two streams. Stringent requirements must be met before a school could claim to be an EMI school. According to this ‘late immersion’ model for students aged 11–12 at secondary level, every year about 30 percent of the primary school leavers are allocated to an EMI school. Following Li ( Multilingual Hong Kong: languages, literacies and identities . Springer, Cham, 2017), this paper will first discuss why the TaB target is such a tall order for Cantonese-dominant students by reviewing the relevant literature along five inter-related dimensions: contrastive linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and instructional strategies and bilingual pedagogies. I will then examine the SAR government’s language support measures to assess their effectiveness and explore possible alternatives. The paper will end with a number of recommendations, which together constitute an LPP (language policy and planning) roadmap for improving the chance with which the TaB policy is likely to produce more positive outcomes. (i) To re-prioritize the investment and extent of language support by strengthening the quality of language input at the key stages of learning from age 3–9, which in curriculum terms correspond with K1–P3; (ii) To use Cantonese as the medium of instruction for teaching all subjects except English and Putonghua as separate subjects at preschool (K1–K3, age 3–6); (iii) To explore the possibility of implementing total immersion in Putonghua for three years at lower primary level (P1–P3, age 6–9); (iv) To abandon the ‘maximum exposure, no mixing’ dogma in secondary education and to encourage basic and action research in bilingual pedagogies and instructional strategies informed by Content-and-language integrated learning (CLIL); (v) To attract academically bright and linguistically gifted students to receive professional training and be prepared and committed for a career in language teaching; and (vi) To encourage civil servants of various government offices, schoolteachers, and university staff to initiate a ‘speak English/Putonghua where we can’ campaign. For these policy measures to be successfully implemented and bear fruit, apart from careful planning, there ought to be strong leadership from within the government and the education sector, plus mechanisms for coordinating concerted actions on the part of various groups of stakeholders, notably teachers, school principals, educationalists, and experts of language teaching and learning in academia.