Publication details
English as a Medium of Instruction: Essential Skills for Global Teachers
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| Year of publication | 2020 |
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| Description | Cultural and educational changes throughout the world have been affecting the way we think, learn and teach. Each country and each university reflect those changes in diverse ways. Different institutions adopt innovative pedagogies, methodologies and educational styles, however, there is one unifying factor, it is English. Since „English (in all its varieties accepted by the international academic commnity) has become the lingua franca for a vast majority of scholarly disciplines and the language of communication for researchers, teachers, students and university administrators worldwide,“ English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) has been environments, whether it is at universities that operate entirely in English where all teaching, administration and support services take place in English, at universities that operate in a multilingual setting where English is equal to other languages in the areas of teaching, administration and support services, or at universities where English is dominated by other languages and appears in teaching, administration and support services sporadically. In all those settings, in order to become globally successful, both teachers and learners are expected to not only acquire appropriate language cempetencies that would enable them communicate competently in their discipline, but also learn a whole range of extra-linguistic skills, such as intercultural communication, team work, creative and critical thinking, or autonomous decision-making strategies. In this talk, as an ESP teacher, EMI teacher trainer and global English practitioner, I offer a practice-oriented insight into approaches that can allow for flexible implementation of a wide range of linguistic and extra-linguistic competencies into ESP courses. Within the context of EMI, first I address the role of language in effective intercultural communication. Then, I discuss appropriatennes of diverse teaching styles in EMI and other classes. And finally, I consider strategies that can guide students to become multilingual learners who can deal with a wider variety of complex communicative challenges they may face in academia and elsewhere in the future. |