Decolonising EMI lecturer training

In this talk I will argue for the decolonisation of EMI lecturer training. Often it is applied linguists and English language practitioners who are called upon to design and deliver such training. However, the findings of my worldwide EMI lecturer training survey (Deroey, 2023) indicate that the multifaceted nature of such training means it should ideally involve collaborations with educationalists, EMI experts, disciplinary content experts (see also Macaro & Aizawa, 2022) and policy makers.
My survey of 25 published EMI training initiatives in 18 countries shows common components to be not only language but also pedagogy, communication and EMI awareness. Recurring challenges include contextualisation, incentivisation and lecturer confidence. The reports also reveal that few EMI lecturers have received prior teacher training and that some are resistant to or have a limited understanding of EMI. Given the various needs of EMI lecturers and the resulting multifaceted nature of most EMI lecturer training programmes, it appears to make sense to position these as part of continuous professional development (Jiménez-Muñoz, 2020) involving a collaboration -or at least dialogue- between language professionals, educationalists, EMI experts, and stakeholders such as lecturers, students and policy makers.
Decolonising EMI lecturer training through interdisciplinary collaboration as well as input by stakeholders arguably has several advantages. First, the cross-fertilisation of disciplinary expertise and experience could enhance such training (Galloway & Rose, 2022) and raise its status. Second, these collaborations could create a greater awareness of the challenges and affordances of EMI. Finally, such joint endeavours could open up new interdisciplinary research avenues into EMI that may in turn lead to a greater uptake of its findings.
References
Deroey, K. L. B. (2023). English medium instruction lecturer training programmes: content, delivery, ways forward. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 62, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2023.101223
Galloway, N., & Rose, H. (2022). Cross-fertilisation, not bifurcation, of EMI and EAP. ELT Journal, 76(4), 538-546.
Jiménez-Muñoz, A. (2020). Shortcomings in the professional training of EMI lecturers: skills-based frameworks as a way forward. In D. González-Álvarez & E. Rama-Martínez (Eds.), Languages and the internationalisation of Higher Education (pp. 120-139). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Macaro, E., & Aizawa, I. (2022). Who owns English medium instruction? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1-14. 1 https://doi.org/0.1080/01434632.2022.2136187