Session Information
22 SES 07 F JS, EMI and Beyond: Planning international curricula in higher education for multilingual and multicultural contexts Part 1
Joint Symposium NW 22 and NW 31 to be continued in 22 SES 08 F JS
Contribution
Italian universities are striving to enhance their internationalization policies through the implementation of English-Medium Instruction (Costa & Coleman 2013) and the University of Padova is no exception, with a total of 49 fully English-taught programmes (ETPs) now on offer. Yet this phenomenon is problematic, with ongoing concerns about guaranteeing quality (Wilkinson 2013) and ensuring the role and status of the local language, in this case Italian, along with its academic culture (Motta 2016; Phillipson 2006). The recent heated debate over the fact that Italian was to be optional in applications for national research projects serves as a timely illustration of the latter. This presentation will briefly introduce research conducted into lecturer and learner perceptions of EMI at the University of Padova (Helm & Guarda 2015; Guarda forthcoming), which will be framed within the following research questions: What linguistic and methodological support do EMI lecturers require? What do learners perceive as the difference between EMI and content learning though their L1? It will then focus specifically on one ETP at the University of Padova, a bachelor’s degree in Psychological Science, which was first introduced in the 2015-2016 academic year. The degree includes and compulsory course in Academic English, which was provided for the first time in the 2017-2018 academic year. I will view academic writing requirements through an ecology of learning lens, in an attempt to address the following: How might EAP needs in an EMI setting differ from those in an English-speaking HE setting? The presentation will conclude by mentioning the physical linguistic landscape (LL) in which the BA in Psychological Science is located (Helm & Dalziel forthcoming), commenting on the contradictory role of English: it may be seen as a hegemonic, imperialist force, but at the same time its use in the LL allows for greater inclusion of the minority group of international students enrolled at an Italian university. Keywords: internationalization, English-Medium Instruction (EMI), lecturer support, English for Academic Purposes (EAP), linguistic landscape
References
Costa, Francesca & James Coleman. 2013. A Survey of English-Medium Instruction in Italian higher education. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 16 (1), 3–19. Helm, Francesca & Marta Guarda. 2015. ‘Improvisation is not allowed in a second language’: A survey of Italian lecturers’ concerns about teaching their subjects through English. Language Learning in Higher Education 5/2, 353-373. Helm, Francesca & Dalziel, Fiona. Forthcoming. Beyond the classroom: the impact of EMI on a university’s linguistic landscape. Guarda, Marta. Forthcoming. "After all, most of us are a non-native speaker": student perceptions of ELF in English-Medium Instruction. Motta, Attilio. 2017. Nine and a half reasons against the monarchy of English. In Katherine Ackerley, Marta Guarda & Francesca Helm (eds.), Sharing Perspectives on English-Medium Instruction, Bern: Peter Lang, 95-110. Phillipson, Robert. 2006. English, Cuckoo in the European Higher Education Nest of Languages?. European Journal of English Studies 10(1), 13–32. Wilkinson, Robert, 2013. English-Medium Instruction at a Dutch university: Challenges and Pitfalls. In Aintzane Doiz, David Lasagabaster & Juan Manuel Sierra (eds.), English-Medium Instruction at Universities. Global Challenges. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 3-24.
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