Exploring the longitudinal effects of EMI on students’ motivation and anxiety

Higher education institutions have witnessed an unprecedented surge in the number of programmes offered in English. As English-medium instruction (EMI) courses at university level continue their spread across the globe, EMI students from all contexts are facing a double challenge, since they are expected to develop simultaneously the field-specific knowledge and the linguistic competence required to understand and process such knowledge in a foreign language. While there is a growing body of research delving into students’ motivation towards EMI, their experiences in such environment and the potential motivational fluctuations these may undergo over time are still unexplored. The aim of this paper was to analyse the evolution of EMI students’ motivation and anxiety over the course of three academic years. Specifically, it examines EMI-related affective factors of a group of students (N=19) from two different degrees (i. e., History, and Engineering) from a public university in the north of Spain. Data gathered via focus groups in three consecutive academic years showed that students were generally motivated and positive towards their EMI courses and that their anxiety levels improved after having experienced EMI. However, the students from the two degrees reported different (de)motivating factors in EMI, which evolved over time.