Chinese and English serve as the two official languages in Hong Kong. When it comes to the medium of instruction (MOI), however, tertiary institutions in this post-colonial city predominantly employ English as the medium of instruction (EMI). Despite the old understanding that EMI creates an “English-only” environment, the practice of code-switching, recently called translanguaging, continues to exist in classrooms under the “Fine-tuning MOI policy”. Indeed, academics in the field of applied linguistics have yet to reach a consensus over to what extent the first language (L1) should be integrated into the second language (L2) classroom, particularly within the context of English as a lingua franca (ELF). Furthermore, considering the framework of communicative language teaching (CLT), teachers will at times adopt pedagogical methods for simulating the actual multilingual or plurilingual settings to facilitate students’ learning. But still, there is a lack of clarity in regard to the perspectives of Hong Kong students, especially those with limited English proficiency, on the use of Chinese in the EMI classroom. The study, therefore, aims at exploring Hong Kong sub-degree students’ perception of the utilization of Chinese in the EMI classroom. Based on findings from six unstructured interviews with Chinese-English bilingual students, a thematic analysis identified 19 themes of the possible advantages associated with utilizing Chinese in the EMI classroom. Following this, a questionnaire comprising 19 items (later reduced to 18) was developed and distributed to a cohort of 103 associate-degree students in a post-secondary institution in Hong Kong for further investigation. Descriptive statistics indicates that the informants were not resistant to using Chinese in the EMI classroom, and that they believed L1 could help apply their own study skills, increase their motivation to learn, and enhance their confidence of learning.

Exploratory factor analysis using principal components extraction and Varimax rotation further identifies five factors that can affect students’ perception of using Chinese in the EMI classroom:
i) benefits to “learning through formal lectures”,
ii) benefits to “doing exercises in class”,
iii) benefits to “doing take-home assignments”,
iv) benefits to “active learning / self-regulated learning”, and benefits to “teacher-student relationship”.

These five factors explain approximately 70% of the variance. The model built by multiple regression using the stepwise method suggests that beliefs in the benefit of using Chinese for assessments are good predictors of sub-degree students’ evaluation of using Chinese in the EMI classroom, but that beliefs in such a benefit for teacher-student relationship are not. These findings are partially elucidated by another round of interviews conducted with those six students thereafter. It is recommended that frontline college teachers utilize the shared L1 to recap or summarize any information or explanations that have been given in L2 previously. This may assist students in completing take-home assignments, rather than solely establishing rapport with them.

Keywords: EMI, bilingual education, code-switching, translanguaging, pedagogy, language attitude, Hong Kong, mixed methods research.