English for university admin staff: it’s all in the mix

Abstract

Abstract As a result of increasing internationalisation, the University of Copenhagen established the Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language Use (CIP) in 2008 as a research, competence development and resource centre. Part of CIP’s remit is to provide language training (mainly in Danish and English) for students and staff at the University. While there has been a lot of focus on teaching and learning through the medium of English, the language needs of administrative staff seem to have been neglected. They are expected to communicate with international students, teachers and researchers who do not necessarily speak the local language. This activity report looks at how CIP has set about meeting these needs by developing specific terminology-based language courses in English for university administrative staff, including HR, finance and study administrative staff. The terminology taught on the courses is tailored to the specific group of participants; however, a basic framework of activities is used as the starting point for all the terminology courses. As participants’ course evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive about the blend of activities, this paper reports on the design of the framework and how it is applied to the courses in practice.