English medium education: a handbook for teachers: insights from the University of Girona

Abstract

The Handbook aims to be accessible and useful to current and future English Medium Education (EME) teachers. Although conceived initially for teachers at the University of Girona, it may be of equal interest to teachers and policymakers in other higher education (hereinafter HE) settings where EME is being implemented. The Handbook is organised into separate sections focusing on different themes of interest and concern to EME teachers. These themes have been extracted from an in-depth thematic analysis of presentations delivered by members of the EME Teaching Innovation Network (Josep Pallach Institute of Education Sciences (ICE), UdG). The aim of these presentations was to share EME teaching experiences, highlighting notable findings reported, difficulties encountered, and lessons learned. Ten presentations were delivered by five female and five male teachers with varying years of teaching experience and diverse areas of academic expertise, from different departments in the faculties of Education and Psychology, Sciences, Law, Nursing, Arts, Medicine, Tourism, Economic and Business Sciences, the Polytechnic School, and the School of Health and Sport. The themes that emerged from these presentations were debated at length by members of the Network. The results of these debates have been summarised in this Handbook for the benefit of other university teachers. As indicated above, the Handbook provides an experience-based perspective that aims to be accessible to current and future EME teachers. It is by no means presented as an exhaustive account of EME, but rather as an introductory guide to some of the issues that have emerged from our own experiences. Considerable research has been developed on the topics discussed in this Handbook in the specialised literature on EME and EMI. As a network, our aim is to contribute to these lines of enquiry by carrying out specific studies exploring the themes that have emerged in our own university context. In the meantime, and in response to the growing demand for support and guidance for EME teachers, this Handbook shares our initial findings and encourages other teachers to reflect upon the issues discussed in relation to their own practice. The references provided may be of particular interest to readers who would like to know more about recent developments in EME research