Ibérica (Oct 2011)
Talking about teaching in English: Swedish university lecturers’ experiences of changing teaching language
Abstract
This study documents the experiences of Swedish university lecturers when they change from teaching in their first language to teaching in English. Eighteen lecturers from two Swedish universities took part in a training course for teachers who need to give content courses in English. As part of the course the participants gave mini-lectures in their first language in a subject area that they usually teach. The following week, the lecturers gave the same lectures again, this time in English. The pairs of lectures were videoed and commented on by the lecturers themselves and the whole course cohort in an online discussion forum (an input of approximately 60 000 words). In addition, twelve of the lecturers were interviewed about their experiences of changing language in this way (total of 4 hours of recorded material). The paper presents a qualitative analysis of the thoughts and experiences expressed by the lecturers in their online discussions and in the interviews concerning the process of changing the language of instruction to English. These results are presented as nine themes. Nine recommendations for teachers changing to teaching in English are also presented. The findings replicate those of earlier studies with one notable exception: the lecturers in this study were acutely aware of their limitations when teaching in English. It is suggested that this may be due to the lecturers’ relative inexperience of English-medium instruction.
