Internationalisation in higher education is often construed along economic lines as the development of strategic partnerships with private enterprises or along political lines as the internationalisation of educational policy and the promotion of student mobility across national borders. A third dimension, “internationalisation at home”, emphasises the inclusion of international and intercultural aspects into curriculum design within domestic learning environments (Beleen and Jones 2015). The socio-lingual and socio-cultural dimensions of internationalisation in education are also crucial given the complex process through which ideas interconnect and are communicated across horizons, from the local to the global. De Wit (2013, 2011, 2010) suggests that these various rationales for internationalisation are not mutually exclusive but rather intersect, overlap and vary over time.

Internationalising curricula in higher education suggests the need for purposeful planning in syllabus design and delivery to reflect the diversity of learners and mobility of knowers and of knowledge in the twenty-first century (Smit and Dafouz 2012). The central role language and culture play in the process of generating and disseminating knowledge, the core mission of universities, highlights the need for greater research into forms of integrating language and literacy training into disciplinary content for coherent internationalisation of academic curricula. The papers in the symposia examine the effectiveness of English Medium Instruction (EMI) for internationalisation and engage with alternative content-and-language-integrated models that support meaningful international and intercultural learning. 

Jemma Prior presents the results of an action research study on the role of negotiation in syllabus design for an advanced English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course in Economics at the University of Bolzano, revealing how inclusion is enhanced through a process-oriented approach wherein learning aims and outcomes are collaboratively defined with students to maximize the effectiveness of EMI and empower diverse learners in the language classroom. Fiona Dalziel examines lecturer and learner perceptions of EMI in the context of a bachelor’s degree in Psychological Science at the University of Padova, demonstrating that while an English-taught programme can be an inclusive strategy for international students in an otherwise monolingual landscape, it puts pressure on Italian lecturers who need support in the design and delivery of disciplinary content in English. Olivia Mair and Francesca Costa present a multimodal analysis of EMI lecturer competence through observation of academic micro teaching across disciplines at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, focusing on various aspects of lecturers’ styles in order to identify key competences and establish guidelines for best practice. Focusing on the Italian context, this first group of papers (Part 1) problematizes EMI as a strategy for internationalisation from both learner and lecturer perspectives.

By foregrounding diverse case studies from Italy and drawing on national perspectives from Germany, Slovenia, Estonia and seven African countries, the notion of internationalisation as ‘one size fits all’ programming delivered mainly in the national language with some English-medium instruction added on (van Leeuwen 2004) is revealed as pedagogically limited and limiting for diversity. The symposia papers draw on a range of methodologies from multimodal participant observation to action research in presenting studies which suggest that internationalisation in HE is more successfully realised when international and intercultural content is purposefully planned and integrated into disciplinary courses with contextualised learning aims and outcomes. Such curricula may extend beyond the home campus and formal learning contexts to include other intercultural/international learning opportunities within communities, or may involve the virtual mobility of learners and lecturers through technology-assisted programmes that facilitate engagement in collaborative learning communities and transnational networks of knowledge.

Beelen, Jos and Elspeth Jones. 2015. “Redefining Internationalisation at Home”. The European Higher Education Area: Between critical reflections and future policies. A. Curaj, L. Matei, R. Pricopie, J. Salmi and P. Scott (eds.) Springer Chan, 59-72. de Wit, Hans. 2013. An Introduction to Higher Education Internationalisation. Milan: Vita e Pensiero. de Wit, Hans. 2011. “Globalisation and Internationalisation of Higher Education.” Revista de Universidad y Sociedad del Conocimiento (RUSC) 8(2), 241-248. de Wit, Hans. 2010. Internationalisation of Higher Education in Europe and its assessment, trends and issues. Amsterdam: University of Applied Sciences. Smit, Ute and Emma Dafouz. 2012. “Integrating content and language in higher education: An introduction to English-medium policies, conceptual issues and research practices across Europe.” In ICLHE: Gaining Insights into English-Medium Instruction at European Universities. AILA Review, Vol. 25. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1-12. Van Leeuwen, Charles. 2004. “Multilingual universities in Europe: Models and realities.” Integrating Content and Language: Meeting the challenge of a Multilingual Higher Education. Ed. Robert Wilkinson. Maastricht: Universitaire Pers Maastricht, 576-584.