Perceptions of doctoral students towards English as a medium of instruction

The implementation of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) is a needed asset and an established practice at universities worldwide, and today, there is a burgeoning interest in how it is perceived. This paper explores the perceptions of science and technology doctoral students towards the use of EMI instead of French, the ‘default’ medium of instruction in Algerian higher education. The study at hand uses an online Likert scale questionnaire administered to 28 students in three alternative Algerian universities. The main results revealed that the students display strong positive perceptions towards adopting EMI instead of French. Some reasons behind this penchant embrace the fact that English is highly required to improve the quality of education and scientific research, the need to conduct research, write articles and use updated references, the desire to pursue postgraduate studies abroad, and the intention to have an edge in the job market. Another interesting result is that the students seemed unsatisfied with the way the initiative was implemented, because they were not qualified for such a sudden propensity. Subsequently, the paper ends with some conclusions and implications where there is a need to raise the students’ awareness on the importance of EMI, and create a synergy involving subject matter instructors, English language teachers, policy makers and language planning experts to prepare a comprehensive plan that will help enhance it in higher education.