Reimagining EMI Through Multi-/translingual Access: A Decolonial Pedagogical Perspective of Philippine ELT

English has become the de facto language of science, math, and other content area subjects in Philippine schools. While often idealized as an advantage as the language is unwittingly embraced as a good way of developing students’ literacy, English proficiency, and knowledge of academic content, EMI is at the nexus of ideological tensions and discussions surrounding English and multilingualism in the Philippines. In this chapter, I critically unpack EMI as historically and politically constructed emerging from decades of colonial rule and American-centric education, which suppressed indigenous Filipinos’ culture, languages, and translingual practices. I argue that EMI in the Philippine context sustains the coloniality and hegemony of English through discourses of globalization and monolingual ideology that reify linguistic injustice and educational inequity among Filipino children. As a way of intervention, this chapter proposes multi-/translingual access as a fundamental right of every Filipino child as it draws on their translingual realities. More specifically, I argue for a reformulation of teacher ideologies and the reconfiguring of the EMI curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices that allows Filipino teachers and students to harness their full multilingual repertoire. Specific courses of actions are proposed as a way of reimagining EMI from a decolonial perspective that resists colonial mentality and oppressive ideologies in order to foster social justice and equity in Philippine education.