One major impact of globalisation on education is denoted by the growing trend to use English, the global language, as a medium of instruction (MOI) in emerging polities that are trying to enhance their English-speaking capacities. This article emphasises developing an understanding of MOI from a language policy and planning as well as an educational perspective. It explores the policy and practice of MOI in 10 polities in Asia including Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Maldives, Nepal, Timor-Leste and Vietnam, using a broad-based framework that aims to explicate the context, motivation, goals, actors, implementation process and outcomes of MOI. The article points out the dominance of English as MOI which is used in eight of the polity studies included in our analysis. We conclude that while the Asian region as a whole reflects the globalisation of English as medium of instruction policies, individual polities may have specific motivations and goals and that they may develop specific strategies to protect their own interests and identities. More crucially, at the macro-policy level, there seems to be a simplistic understanding of MOI as a cheap solution to complex language problems for achieving overly ambitious politico-economic goals and that this leads to less than ideal MOI implementation illustrated by teachers' and students' struggles as policy actors at the micro level.

The introduction of English in primary education curricula is a phenomenon occurring in many non-English-speaking countries in Asia, including Vietnam. Recently, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) in Vietnam issued guidelines for the piloting of an English as a foreign language (EFL) primary curriculum in which English is taught as a compulsory subject from Grade 3; however, there is limited research on the practices required to successfully implement this policy. This paper reports on a study that looked at the implementation of the primary English language policy in terms of the policy goals in two primary schools, one private and the other public, in Hanoi to shed light on the practice of EFL teaching at the primary level in Vietnam. The research was conducted as an exploratory case study with data collected from multiple sources, including classroom observations and interviews with different stakeholders. The results revealed variation in the implementation of primary English education between the two schools, with the private school providing better outcomes. The language planning issues discussed in this study, including teacher supply, training and professional development, resourcing, teaching methods, and materials, have been raised in previous educational research in Vietnam. However, despite being a new start to primary English, the 2010 programme seems to have done little to improve policy implementation in these areas, hindering the effectiveness of teaching English in schools. This study suggests a number of ways the current situation might be improved.

Recent research on language planning and policy highlights the effects of globalisation in spreading the English language as a medium of instruction (EMI) in non-native English speaking (NNES) countries. This trend has encouraged many universities in NNES countries to offer EMI education programmes with the objective of developing national human capital with proficiency in English. One such country is Vietnam, where the Ministry of Education and Training prepared a 2008–2020 action plan to revitalise English language education, involving the improvement of the quality of language teacher education (TE). As part of the current reforms, the Ministry has urged teacher training colleges and universities to develop high quality English as a foreign language (EFL) TE programmes. In response, a fast-track EFL TE programme with EMI has been introduced at a Vietnamese university. Focusing on this TE programme, this paper illustrates how contemporary globalisation encourages using EMI in TE in NNES countries. Vygotskian socio-cultural theory and Marginson and Rhoades's [Beyond national states, markets, and systems of higher education: A glonacal agency heuristic. Higher Education, 43(3), 281–309] glonacal heuristic are used to analyse the effects of globalisation in this EMI teaching context. Based on individual interviews of a cohort of 20 Vietnamese pre-service teachers, classroom observations and artefacts, such as instructional materials and policy documents, the paper shows that global influences on teaching practices were mediated by a number of different elements, including social and community pressure, trends to the internationalisation of education, and the availability of teaching resources.

Scholars concerned with language policies (LPs) argue that globalization has brought about various political, socio-economic, and linguistic shifts that increasingly impact on teacher agency (e.g., Zhao & Baldauf, 2012). Recently, the LP literature has increasingly acknowledged the agentive role of teachers as a critical factor in implementing policy (Liddicoat & Baldauf, 2008). These and other scholars argue that teachers have the potential to exercise their transformative roles in implementing and responding to the LP changes (Menken & Garcia, 2010). However, agency has remained under-examined (Hamid, Nguyen, & Baldauf, 2013; Ramanathan & Morgan, 2007; Zhao & Baldauf, 2012) especially in developing settings like Vietnam. In the context of national English language education policy reforms in Vietnam, the need to explore teacher agency in response to the reforms to better understand the policy implementation process at the local level is critical. Using Fullan's (1993) theory on change agency, this paper examines how a group of English teachers in a remote mountainous area in Vietnam interpret, interrogate, and appropriate the current English LP. Data were collected from interviews and classroom observation of the teachers to shed light on their visions and practices in responding to the reform policy. The findings indicate that teachers are highly capable of exercising their agency as comprehensive policy implementers. They do so by resisting the poorly regulated English LPs and working towards meaningful pedagogical transformations. The study thus emphasizes the urgent need for a comprehensive understanding of teachers’ agency in LP decision-making and implementation. It also makes a contribution to explicitly theorizing the concept of teacher agency from the perspective of Fullan's theory on change agency. Lastly, the study considers implications for teachers, policy-makers, and school leaders to support the active roles of the teachers in reform implementation.