Affect regulation in the English Medium Instruction (EMI) university classroom in Germany. How do home and international students’ and lecturers’ experiences differ?

The growth of higher education programmes taught through the medium of English is a global phenomenon that is unlikely to slow down in the immediate future (Dearden & Macaro, 2016). Amidst the activity to increase competitiveness through internationalisation in the global HE market, it becomes increasingly important to understand all aspects inherent in the learning process, not least of which are the affective experiences of the key stakeholders - the students and their lecturers. In Germany, English medium of instruction (EMI) programmes have seen an upward trajectory since the turn of the century with numbers of English-taught courses increasing significantly (Gonzalez, 2017). Yet policies to manage the implementation of EMI programmes remain vague and EMI stakeholders are expected to manage with little support.
Hitherto, a large body of research in the field of EMI has concentrated on the cognitive aspects related to academic achievement and language learning (Macaro, 2018). Affective dimensions have been neglected (Hopkyns & Gkonou, 2023). This study investigates the affective experiences of 11 German home students and 10 international students, and 5 home and 2 visiting lecturers on either full- or partial-EMI business bachelor programmes at a small state-run university of applied sciences. Taking a mixed methods approach and triangulating data collected from a questionnaire, lesson observations, stimulated recall, semi-structured interviews and focus groups, the study revealed that affect arising from EMI courses has little to do with the use of English. The study furthermore revealed that management of affect can be operated similarly to metacognitive learner strategies.
The insights gleaned from the German contextual study draw attention to the importance of affect in leveraging cognitive processing and maximising the learning, growth and personal development of those indelibly connected and engaged in EMI learning: the students and lecturers.