Role of English teachers within Internationalisation of higher education at non-philological universities

Proceedings of The 4th International Conference on New Trends in Teaching and Education

Year: 2022

DOI:

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Role of English teachers within Internationalisation of higher education at non-philological universities

Ludmila Hurajova, Jana Luprichova, and Gabriela Chmelikova

 

ABSTRACT: 

The internationalisation of higher education triggers many challenges for all stakeholders involved in this process. Acceleration of providing an international education environment across Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have resulted in fostering English as “Lingua franca”, thus the term internationalisation of HE is often replaced by the term Englishisation of HE. This brought up a shift in roles of higher education teachers especially disciplinary teachers are required to develop their English skills to become members of international research teams, projects, and even to be able to run their courses, lectures or at least consultations for foreign students in English. Setting an English Education Environment (EEE) at non-philological HEIs with non-English speaking stakeholders is a demanding challenge for both disciplinary teachers and students. This paper focuses on the university teachers within the process of internationalisation of HE. Specifically, dealing with the role of English teachers in this process based on the findings in the research project conducted at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Faculty of Materials Science and Technology in Trnava. A questionnaire, an interview and observation methods were used to gain the data for processing to identify the role of English teachers within the internationalisation process. The data were collected during an international Visegrad+ project that aimed at studying the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) as a potentially suitable approach for setting Englis Education Environment (EEE) at non-philological universities in non-English speaking countries (V4 states and Western Balkan states).

keywords: ESP teachers, Internationalisation of Higher Education, CLIL approach, Disciplinary Teachers, Cooperation.