British Council: Teaching in English for Academics

Teaching in English for Academics:

EMI – English as a Medium of Instruction

Lingua Franca

English has become the lingua franca of academic exchange. Lecturers in all subject areas are facing a new reality: seminars and lectures with a highly diverse and international student body that requires instruction through English. English as Medium of Instruction – or EMI – has become an important development in creating a truly international university. The quality of academic teaching in this context is a crucial issue for institutions, lecturers and students alike.

In response, the British Council has created EMI courses for university lecturers which place the student at the centre of the learning process, combining innovative teaching methodology and linguistic practice to enhance the quality of teaching and prepare graduates for the international arena in both work and further academic studies.

An Introduction to EMI

The Course

This training course, delivered online, considers the challenges of teaching academic subjects through English as the Medium of Instruction, including topics such as, addressing a mixed language-level and culturally diverse student body, increasing student participation, approaches to assessment, amongst others, and offers some practical solutions.

The course is delivered in English and participants will have the opportunity to try out the language and techniques acquired on the course in practical micro-teaching sessions for which they will receive feedback.

Course format

These 18-hour courses are intended to run over six days in two x 90-minute live sessions per day. The timetable can be customised to meet the institution’s needs

Demo lesson

In order to experience our teaching method, it is possible to organise a brief lesson in which the participants discuss English Medium Instruction courses, followed by a presentation of the Introduction to EMI course.

N.B. As well as this course for institutions, we are planning to offer a version to individual university teachers regardless of which institution they work for.

Trainers

Our British Council trainers have wide experience of teacher-training in a number of fields including EMI, CLIL and TEFL

Certification

A British Council Certificate of Attendance will be given to each participant who successfully completes the course.

EMI follow-up

1 – Bespoke EMI – follow-on from EMI I (18 hours)

This course is intended for those who have followed the ‘Introduction to teaching EMI - I’ course. It seeks to deepen understanding of the most relevant topics of the first course and expand on professors’ experience in teaching through EMI.

The topics included in the course will be chosen by participants prior to the start, in order to deliver a made-to-measure experience. 4 to 5 topics can be selected from various topics from the first course, such as lecture planning, assessment, as well as professors’ own ideas, where possible.

2 – EMI - Voice, pronunciation & language (6 hours)

This one-day workshop provides explanations, demonstrations and practice in using your voice to address small or large groups in academic contexts, covering voice projection, pronunciation, body language and useful expressions.