EMI through the eyes of university lecturers

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to introduce the results of a questionnaire survey carried out among university lecturers teaching at different faculties of the University of Szeged, Hungary. Questions focused on the differences between teaching through Hungarian (their mother tongue) as opposed to through English, and on the problems lecturers have faced and the solutions they have to these problems in an EMI context.The results of the questionnaire survey presented in this paper show that there are considerable differences between English-medium and Hungarian-medium classes in terms of methodology, communication with students, lesson planning and testing. Problems identified by lecturers include problems related to language competence and cultural differences. These results highlight the need for cooperation in internationalization efforts between EMI and CLIL experts and university lecturers teaching their courses through English.