STAFF SUPPORT FOR INTERNATIONALIZATION– A CASE OF LANGUAGE AND CONTENT TEACHERS COLLABORATION

Abstract

In the context of growing efforts for becoming more international and, hence, more attractive for staff and students worldwide, higher education institutions implement and support English Medium Instruction (EMI) and try to enhance visibility of research results through publishing in English. The resources necessary for this successful enterprise include a teaching and research staff highly proficient in using English both for teaching subjects other than English and writing materials based on research. The general context of EMI can be further complicated by local factors which add to the complex puzzle of forces that shape higher education today. The present paper describes and analyzes the case of a Romanian higher education institution which, although offering English taught programs for over a decade in several engineering fields, has only recently decided to reconsider the needs of the EMI teaching and research staff and to provide ongoing support, with the view of increasing quality of EMI education and also of adding new programs taught in English. The recent support program consists of three components: language courses focused on speaking and listening skills and on grammar-discourse features of written texts, pedagogy-focused workshops and a one-to-one tutoring support for editing and improving the accuracy and readability of research-related texts to be published in English. The components were implemented as an integrated system which has fostered collaboration between language and content teachers involved in EMI. Informing each other in both practice and research, EMI and TESOL (here represented mostly by English for Specific Purposes) form a productive symbiosis when all stakeholders are involved. The implications of such cases can be consequential for the further development of support programs for EMI teaching and research staff, based on specific needs of local EMI communities of practice and on principles derived from the language and content teachers’ collaboration

Keywords

• English Medium Instruction
• internationalization
• ELT/ESP
• higher education
• language support