The Expansion of English-medium Instruction in the Nordic Countries.Can Top-Down University Language Polices Encourage Bottom-up Disciplinary Literacy Goals?

Recently, in the wake of the Bologna Declaration and similar internationalinitiatives, there has been a rapid increase in the number of university courses and programmestaught through the medium of English. Surveys have consistently shown theNordic countries to be at the forefront of this trend towards English-medium instruction(EMI). In this paper, we discuss the introduction of EMI in four Nordic countries (Denmark,Finland, Norway and Sweden). We present the educational setting and the EMIdebate in each of these countries and summarize relevant research findings. We then makesome tentative suggestions for the introduction of EMI in higher education in othercountries. In particular, we are…