EMI Teacher Cognition

Abstract

The past decade has witnessed a vast proliferation of English-medium instruction (EMI) courses in higher education in Europe. Research on this approach has highlighted concerns about the linguistic and pedagogic competences of non-native English-speaking lecturers and how these competences may affect the quality of teaching and learning. Consequently, lecturers’ abilities to teach in EMI are under scrutiny, and universities are developing policies for quality assurance, which often consist of implementation of language assessment procedures and teacher training courses. This chapter offers a transnational perspective on EMI lecturer training needs based on reflections and experiences of EMI lecturers from different parts of Europe. As part of a needs analysis for developing teacher training protocols, the study draws on data from a large Erasmus+ project entitled TAEC (Transnational Alignment of English Competences for University Lectures). Based on interview responses of 30 EMI lecturers from both the natural sciences and social sciences in five European universities (in Croatia, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain), commonalities and differences of EMI lecturers are investigated. Themes in the data analysis included teaching experience, language proficiency, teacher training, and teaching practices, each of which is discussed.