Medium of instruction policies and language practices, ideologies and institutional divides: voices of teachers and students in a private university in Bangladesh

The use of English as a medium of instruction (MOI) in polities across the world has drawn attention of language policy and planning scholars and researchers. Increasingly, research on MOI policy and practice focuses on how macro-level policies are translated into action by 'actors' including teachers and students in the micro-context. However, there has been limited research on teachers' and students' language practices and ideologies that potentially reproduce divisive MOI policies for different sectors of education. This article reports a case study involving teachers and students in a private university in Bangladesh to illustrate how national MOI policies provide a framework for actors in the micro-context to construct identities for languages and institutions by means of 'othering'. Higher education in Bangladesh is divided between the public and private sectors and the divide is marked by MOI English and Bangla in the former and English only in the latter. Based on our analysis of interview data, we argue that through their language practices and beliefs, students and teachers construct hierarchies of languages and institutions, using the rules of self- and other-representation and thereby perpetuating the macro-level divide. We suggest implications of the macro-level MOI policies and micro-level practices for students' content knowledge and English proficiency development in a globalizing world where English is widely believed to hold immense potential for individuals and societies because of its role in human capital development.