By Àngels Pinyana
Over the last two decades, higher education institutions have progressively moved towards the international higher education market. In this context, universities have begun internationalising their curricula by offering international programmes and modules within their regular study programmes whose goal is to accommodate an international audience and to prepare students for life and work in a global environment. The establishment of such programmes and modules, however, presents universities with specific challenges and problems, one of which is quality assurance.
The paper English Mediated Instruction (EMI) pedagogic practice and its implications on quality presented by Àngels Pinyana as part of the colloquium Teaching in English in Higher Education: Linguistic Considerations on Quality at the 5th ICLHE conference that took place in Copenhagen from 4 to 7 October 2017, addressed the issue of quality in International programmes/modules.
Pinyana’s paper emphasised the fact that quality has become a major concern in tertiary education since the 1990s. With the aim of pursuing excellence, higher education institutions have been required to adopt quality measurements which encompass a range of indicators, such as student and staff ratios, teacher’s disciplinary knowledge or accomplished research. However, in EMI contexts, where teachers and students do not have English as their native language, pedagogic skill is an essential component that quality experts need to focus on. This is of foremost importance because different levels of language proficiency, not only among students but also between teacher and students; time pressure to cover all the course content; and fear of oversimplification of content force EMI teachers to hone their pedagogic skills to communicate effectively.
ICLHE is an annual international conference whose goal is to promote exchange of opinions, experiences, initiatives and research concerning the interface between content and language (ICL) in higher education (HE). In particular, in Copenhagen, content and language university teachers, language experts, as well as education developers and administrators from different international contexts presented their views and their professional practices within the following strands: a) educational approaches that promote ICL in HE, b) learning disciplinary content through an additional language, c) ICL course and program design, d) assessment and evaluation -e.g., teacher, student, programs- and d) ICL teacher training and support.
El passat 25 de novembre va tenir lloc a la UVic-UCC el Congrés Internacional Storytelling Revisited: Stories for Social Change. Aquesta tercera edició es va portar a terme totalment en línia a causa de les mesures que s’han hagut d’adoptar per fer front a la COVID-19. El GRAC hi va participar amb dues comunicacions. Lydia Brugué i Judith Sánchez van presentar la comunicació “Restoring the Telling of Death: How Disney’s Moana Empowers Children’s Understanding of Passing and Reincarnation”, i Sarah Khan va presentar “Two sides to the story”. La primera de les presentacions va tenir com a eix l’anàlisi del tractament del tema de la mort en la pel·lícula de Disney Moana tot posant de manifest les seves implicacions culturals. Sarah Khan, per la seva banda, va exposar una experiència didàctica amb el doble objectiu d’identificar estereotips en els infants mitjançant la narració d’històries i de desenvolupar les habilitats d’expressió oral.
