Understanding Lecturers’ Practices and Processes: A Qualitative Investigation of English-Medium Education in a Spanish Multilingual University

Abstract

This chapter investigates how the internationalization process by way of English-medium Education in Multilingual University Settings (EMEMUS) is unfolding in a Spanish university context. Broadly, Englishmedium instruction (EMI), like content and language integrated learning (CLIL), can be defined as "the use of the English language to teach academic subjects in countries or jurisdictions where the first language (L1) of the majority of the population is not English" (Dearden 2015: 4). A typical differentiating factor between CLIL and EMI is the role of language teaching, and typically, EMI has "no explicit language learning aims" (Madhavan and McDonald 2014: 1). However, separating language and content in EMI contexts has proven challenging owing to EMI instructors' low language proficiency (Dearden 2015), instructors' lack of language awareness and training (Dearden et al. 2016), the varied English language skills among students (Macaro et al. 2018), and broader linguistic difficulties among students and instructors (Vu and Burns 2014). Moreover, following Ortega (2014), in many cases where research on EMI addresses language issues, it typically takes a simplistic and uncritical position of seeing L2 speakers as deficient and a cause of problems in EMI contexts. The complexity of the sites where multilingual universities struggle to provide EMI programs is extraordinary and requires further attention and theorization beyond such a simplistic view (Macaro et al. 2018). In fact, in their systematic review, Macaro et al. (2018: 69) identifya number of outstanding problems and questions in the field of EMI, of which one has been the inspiration for this chapter, namely: Do different HE institutions (e.g., private and state) experience different levels of success in implementing EMI? If so, why? As there remains a need to investigate the implementation of EMI policies in a range of higher education institutions, this study focuses on statefunded education and investigates teacher beliefs about EMI in a Spanish state-funded higher education institute.

Mulilingual education: A contrastive analysis in Humanities, Social Sciences and Health Sciences

“…Other studies have reflected on teachers" and students" perceptions and attitudes towards EMI in Croatian, Japanese and Korean universities (Jiang et al, 2016;Margic & Vodopija-Krstanovic, 2018;Ng, 2017). Challenges posited by EMI instruction are related to teachers" confidence in their linguistic skills and reluctance to the use of translanguaging strategies in their pedagogical practices, as argued by Curry and Pérez-Paredes (2021). In Corrales, Rey and Escamilla"s study (2016), the implementation of EMI was perceived as satisfactory in that students could develop international and intercultural competences.…”

“…Though early initiatives were mostly addressed to secondary education (Llinares et al, 2012), CLIL undergraduate and postgraduate courses have spread in the higher education landscape of non-Anglophone countries (Arnó-Macià & Mancho-Barés, 2015;Bellés-Fortuño, 2021;Carrió-Pastor, 2009Wei, 2013). Since the boom of CLIL programmes, research has delved into linguistic and non-linguistic issues, namely participants" attitudes towards the use of the target language, students" performance, teacher training support as well as the development of intercultural competences (Aguilar, 2021;Bellés-Calvera, 2018;Bellés-Calvera & Bellés-Fortuño, 2018b, in press;Carrió-Pastor, 2009;Curry & Pérez-Paredes, 2021).…”