Quick, Evelyn; (2024) EMI in a trilingual university: Aligning language policy and classroom practice. Doctoral thesis (Ed.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This study investigated language policies and practices around English medium instruction (EMI) at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (UNIBZ). The growing internationalisation of higher education has positioned university lecturers at the ‘interface between institutional demands and students’ expectations’ (Tange, 2010: 141). This change process can produce evolving institutional language policies as English medium education in multilingual university settings becomes a common practice (Dafouz and Smit, 2016). The interrelationship between language policy and practice can be critical as non-native English speaking lecturers deal with issues concerning language proficiency, develop ways to increase student understanding and ensure programme quality is maintained (Doiz et al., 2011). A study examining ways EMI lecturers respond to the challenge of meeting institutional and student expectations around English as a medium of instruction in a trilingual university has relevance for other HEIs confronting the problem of aligning language policy and practice in EMI teaching and learning contexts. Although the findings showed lecturers and administrators took up varying positions on the use of English as a language of instruction, there was some evidence of alignment between different stakeholders on how EMI should be put into practice. This was most notable where lecturers’ adjusted their teaching practice in order to match the needs of students learning through English as an L2. However, there were also instances of individual resistance to an institutional gaze that privileged language and content development as part of the university’s commitment to an integrated content and language learning approach in higher education (ICLHE). While the analysis suggested a gap remained in UNIBZ’s efforts to implement language policy at the level of language practices in classroom discourse, it also underlined that simplified notions of EMI cannot necessarily be applied to complex multilingual teaching and learning environments, such as the one under investigation in this study.

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