Language usage and learning communities in the informal curriculum: the student as protagonist in EMI?

In the Netherlands, study associations play a potentially pivotal role in the
internationalization of the curriculum because they are positioned on the boundary of
the formal and the informal curriculum (Leask 2015). Increasingly these associations
are switching to English as a lingua franca in order to include students from diverse
backgrounds studying in English Medium Instruction (EMI) programmes. Using the
study association at the Faculty of Economics & Business at a Dutch university as a
case study, this chapter investigates the ways in which students frame their use of
language as a means of providing access to the learning community in the informal
curriculum. We also explore whether this use of language in the informal curriculum
influences their language use in the formal curriculum. Data from a combination of
Language Learning Histories and focus groups with home and international students
leads us to conclude that language plays a critical role in processes of inclusion and
exclusion in the study association. Examples of both inclusion and exclusion through
the use of language show that while change is taking place in language use in the
study association, this transition is still too slow to produce agency for all students.
Nevertheless, there is evidence of language breaking down divides between home and
international students in the informal curriculum. Further research should address the
need for support from the university and a more explicit language policy and further
investigate the impact of inclusive language use in the informal curriculum on
language use in the formal curriculum.