Higher education teachers’ attitudes towards English medium instruction: A three-country comparison

Abstract

We report on a small scale study carried out in Austria, Italy and Poland which investigated the attitudes of university teachers engaged in teaching their academic subject through the medium of English. The data consisted of 25 teacher interviews. We focused on the topics of internationalisation of universities, on policy and resourcing, and on the levels of English proficiency (theirs and those of their students) needed for effective English medium instruction (EMI). We also observed whether there were differences among the respondents from the three countries and attempted to relate any differences to the linguistic, educational and political context of each. Our findings suggest that whilst very similar concerns are in the minds of the teachers regardless of the country they were teaching in, some interesting variability in attitudes, relating to language and to history, could be detected. To our knowledge, this is the first study on EMI that compares teacher attitudes in three countries, hence its exploratory nature. Our findings would suggest that further research of such comparative kind might provide insights into how the phenomenon of EMI is being introduced and accepted across the world.

“We are not the language police”: Comparing multilingual EMI programmes in Europe and Asia

“…Indeed, apart from the large scale statistical surveys reported in the introduction, there is an “almost total absence of any comparative studies amongst institutions and/or amongst countries” (Macaro et al, : 64). This is beginning to change with a number of recent publications (Dafouz et al, ; Dearden & Macaro, ; Jenkins & Mauranen, ) offering more in‐depth comparisons between EMI settings, at a range of levels from classroom practices, to stakeholder perceptions, and management policy. However, given the current paucity of data, no firm conclusions on either overarching issues or the relationships between different local concerns can be drawn and further research is needed.…”

Language of Instruction Policy in Science Programs: Science University Students’ Voices

“…These SUSs will also be able to attend graduate programs abroad more efficiently and continue their higher studies since most of the graduate programs use EMI. Dearden & Macaro (2016) surveyed lecturers in Austria, Italy, and Poland and found that a frequently cited advantage of EMI in these countries is giving students the same opportunities to study abroad. Additionally, these students will have access to the most recent developments in their field and more learning resources.…”

From EMI to CLIL

“…However, although our findings suggest that EMI practitioners at our university seem to be willing to teach in English, and are ready to change many aspects of their teaching methods, they do not seem to be ready to make the deeper changes necessary to implement a CLIL methodology in tertiary education, L L's "enriched pedagogy" which is "its major achievement" according to Ball, Kelly & Clegg (2015, p. 4). Therefore, we have to agree with O'Dowd (2018) ("lecturers themselves often do not believe in or see this need for a methodological shift … to more student-centred approaches", p. 3) and Dearden and Macaro (2016) who detected a "distinct lack of awareness of a need to change pedagogy in order to help students … to cope with content delivered through a second language", although they found that instructors seem to be "relatively open to the need for a revised pedagogy" (p. 479). The implications of these findings seem to be far-reaching.…”