Plurilingual lecturers in English medium instruction in the Netherlands: the key to plurilingual approaches in higher education?

Abstract

Recent research calls for a re-structuring of higher education (HE) beyond English medium orientations by acknowledging the plurilingual resources of students and lecturers. In the Netherlands there is a rapid rise in plurilingual lecturers. The central question is to what extent these lecturers make use of their plurilingual resources for teaching within EMI and in what ways they can contribute to making EMI more plurilingual. This mixed-methods study aims at addressing this issue from the perspective of the lecturers. Based on 54 surveys and 20 qualitative interviews, it explores how Dutch-speaking and plurilingual lecturers use their plurilingual resources in EMI. Overall, whereas the plurilingual lecturers engaged more frequently in plurilingual practices in their lectures, Dutch-speaking lecturers were mostly concerned with the status and the level of proficiency in the Dutch language and often followed a strict interpretation of official language policies which limited their engagement with students' plurilingual resources. The study highlights the ways in which plurilingual lecturers can contribute to a shift within EMI towards acknowledging and using the plurilingual resources of both lecturers and students.

Language tensions and unseen languages in a multilingual university: the perspectives of university lecturers

“…a Spanish-speaking lecturer and student). A similar picture was presented by Duarte and van der Ploeg (2019) in the Dutch context where lecturers were not comfortable deviating from the EMI policy and seldom encouraged interaction in any other language. Despite this, they could identify many advantages to including other languages in the classroom, such as social benefits, overcoming language barriers and broadening academic opportunities.…”

“…The benefits of taking plurilingual approaches in EMI contexts have been identified by lecturers as overcoming language barriers and broadening academic and social opportunities (Duarte and van der Ploeg 2019). Additionally, such approaches provide the opportunity to critique and evaluate a wider range of academic materials in different languages and from different academic traditions and to foster an environment where different languages are valorised and where no language is considered unsuitable for academic contexts, no matter how small a role it plays.…”

“…Furthermore, as English is ceasing to be seen as a foreign language, it has acquired a greater social and official role in non-anglophone countries (Coleman 2006). This has led to English being perceived as a threat to national languages as ones of science (Duarte and van der Ploeg 2019;Doiz, Lasagabaster, and Sierra 2011) and to linguistic diversity more generally (Pérez-Llantada 2018). Added to this, there is a suggestion that the emergence of English as a 'Lingua franca' has led to less interest in learning languages from both native-English speaking and nonnative English-speaking students (Brumfit 2004;Dörnyei, Csizér andNémeth 2006 cited in Doiz, Lasagabaster, andSierra 2011).…”

Akademisyenlerin Yabancı Dilde Sözlü İletişim Kurabilme Özyeterlik İnançlarını Etkileyen Faktörler

“…This study was designed to investigate Turkish academics' self-efficacy for oral communication in a foreign language as related to gender, age, academic rank, duration of foreign-language study, years of work experience, previous experience of teaching in a foreign language and previous experience of living abroad. Oral communication is a common problem for many non-native academics (Duarte & van der Ploeg, 2019;Hempel, 2013) but it is also known that individuals who see themselves as highly efficacious set themselves challenges (Bandura, 1977(Bandura, , 2012 and pursue their efforts when their performances fall short of the desired level of achievement (Bandura 2012). On the one hand, faculty can have difficulty in being flexible to improvise while teaching in a foreign language (Helm & Guarda, 2015), on the other hand, they try to make an impact in the research arena through the academic methods of conference presentations, peer-reviewed publications, being involved in international projects, and so on (Bai & Hudson, 2011;McGrail et al, 2006).…”

European Concepts in EMI Introduction: Comparative Analysis of Egypt and Russia

“…Researchers investigated cultural, linguistic, institutional dimensions of EMI policy implementation in China (Hu & Lei, 2014), Turkey (Duran & Sert, 2019), the Netherlands (Duarte & van der Ploeg, 2019), South Korea (Kym, I. & Kym, M. H., 2014), Indonesia (Ibrahim, 2001) and interpreted various case studies of teachers' and students' perception, governmental policies, challenges that all stakeholders face.…”