Bilingualism as the Medium of Educational Instruction: An Exploratory Study of Student and Teachers’ Views in Lebanon

Abstract

Bilingualism as the medium of educational instruction in institutions has led to much controversy. The challenge, however, for policy makers is to address the issue of what languages are to be the medium of instruction and the place of the home and minority languages in EFL contexts as English becomes the lingua franca worldwide.  Further, research has shown that bilingual students when compared to monolingual students perform better in academic institutions as they have developed higher cognitive skills required for learning. Although bilingualism as the medium of instruction has been researched and has become more common in institutions worldwide, it is under researched in L1 Arabic contexts especially in the Lebanese multilingual/cultural context from the student and teachers’ point of view. This paper reports on an exploratory survey study of student and teachers’ preferences in one English medium institution in Lebanon as to what language(s) they prefer to study in at both the pre and university levels. Main findings indicate that both students and teachers show a high preference for bilingualism as the medium of instruction at both the pre and university levels with English the priority medium.  Implications and recommendations for future research are made.