The project specifically addresses the internationalization agenda of the Council of Europe with the underlying rationale to modernize higher education (HE) through design and implementation of innovative transnational practices which will allow for transparency, transferability of academic staff qualifications, and mutual trust. HE internationalization has been implemented through a rapid increase of English-medium instruction (EMI) programs across Europe, which has raised concerns regarding (1) the linguistic competencies of non-native English speaking lecturers and (2) the implications of EMI for the instructional quality, international faculty and student recruitment, as well as local student retention at HE institutions in non-anglophone countries. Consequently, lecturers’ English proficiency is under scrutiny and universities are developing language policies for quality assurance, which are enforced by implementation of internal assessment procedures and EMI training support. Thus far, assessment procedures such as these have been developed and used only locally, at institutional level. Despite their purpose to address the local needs of lecturers in established positions, these procedures seem to overlook issues related to lecture mobility, i.e. they fail to identify lecturer needs which may be occurring transnationally and could collectively be addressed. Some European universities have expressed interests in using transnational assessment procedures, while local lecturers have expressed the need to use their certification results for job and grant applications outside their institutions. However, we are unsure about the transferability of EMI language competencies across different European contexts since these contexts have not been examined comparatively in terms of their EMI goals and needs, as well as their language policy perceptions. Moreover, though some existing certification scales are named based on the CEFR (e.g., certification procedures at Aalborg University, University of Southern Denmark, University of Freiburg), none of these current certification assessment scales has undergone standardized alignment procedures with the Council of Europe's Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), or other more-widely known scales, so results cannot be used transparently beyond the local institution. Therefore, the project aims to lay the foundations for a common framework for EMI quality assurance and support, on the basis of which we can adapt local language certification and EMI training for transparency in transnational uses. The specific objectives of the proposed project are to (1) identify and differentiate between the transnational and the local EMI administrative and instructional needs of partner universities, (2) align a locally-used assessment scale with the Council of Europe's CEFR, which will allow for standardization of results, (3) compare the characteristics of the language used in teaching across different EMI contexts in HE, and (4) use the results for policy negotiations regarding EMI lecturer requirements and support. The long-term objective of TAEC is to provide the groundwork for an EMI quality assurance framework which could be applicable across European universities beyond the partner universities involved in the project. For that purpose 18 researchers and 2 administrators from five different universities will participate in 3 teams, each working on activities associated with a specific intellectual output, i.e. EMI framework, linking assessment to CEFR, and EMI Handbook. Data collection will involve university-wide lecturer, management, and student surveys, followed by interviews with lecturers and management, and EMI classroom observations. A panel of 15-20 judges will be recruited to participate in a three-day standard-setting workshop to align local assessment to the CEFR scale. 20-minute EMI lectures will be video-recorded in controlled settings and linguistic, pragmatic, and discourse analyses will be performed. Finally, 4 training workshops for EMI content teachers/teacher trainers will be organized at four different locations. This project impacts not only the EMI academic staff at the partner universities, but also in the wider European HE context. The transparency of the transnational EMI construct and certification procedures can assist the heads of study boards, heads of departments and deans in determining who can and cannot teach on the EMI programs. In addition, the common EMI framework will provide information for the administration about the type of language training or support teachers need to be able to teach on the EMI programs. It also establishes latent measures of the quality of their EMI programs and helps improve managements' decisions of how, to whom and how much EMI to implement. This recognition of language skills and teaching competences which can be used transnationally will improve lecturer recruitment and mobility.
As specified in the project application, the TAEC project specifically addresses the internationalization agenda of the Council of Europe with the underlying rationale to modernize higher education (HE) through design and implementation of innovative transnational practices, which will allow for transparency, transferability of academic staff qualifications, and mutual trust. The overall purpose of the project has been to develop a common framework for EMI quality assurance and support which will help both partners and HEIs across Europe to recognize the main language skills and teaching competencies needed to facilitate teaching and learning, as well as lecturer recruitment in EMI programs across different HE contexts. The project aimed to lay the foundations for a common framework for EMI quality assurance and support, on the basis of which we could adapt local language certification and EMI training for transparency in transnational uses. The specific objectives of the proposed project were to (1) identify and differentiate between the transnational and the local EMI administrative and instructional needs of partner universities, (2) align a locally-used assessment scale with the Council of Europe's CEFR, which will allow for standardization of results, (3) compare the characteristics of the language used in teaching across different EMI contexts in HE, and (4) use the results for policy negotiations regarding EMI lecturer requirements and support. The long-term objective of TAEC was to provide the groundwork for an EMI quality assurance framework which could be applicable across European universities beyond the partner universities involved in the project. 23 researchers and teacher trainers, and 1 administrator from 5 different universities participated in three teams, each working on activities associated with a specific intellectual output. A total of 1,018 participants have benefited from the project activities and results, covering teachers from observed classroom teaching, teachers participating in EMI workshops, management, policy makers and other stakeholders to participate in meetings and discussions, colleagues and network partners being involved in discussions on project activities, participants in the TAEC conference in April 2019, as well as participants in other conferences where the TAEC results have been discussed and disseminated. Finally, the two associated partner organisations were involved in both discussions of project activities and on dissemination of project results. The project activities include 1) the development of an EMI framework also covering the production of an EMI literature database and corpus, 2) the development of joint assessment procedures and alignment of a local assessment procedure to the CEFR scale, 3) the development of an EMI handbook and hosting of a total of 4 EMI workshops, and 4) dissemination activities such as the arrangement of the TAEC conference in April 2019 as well as presentations, articles, newsletters, and talks on the project activities and results. Results include the following: A large annotated and searchable EMI literature database that includes 205 resources, i.e. articles, books, book chapters, chapters in proceedings, handbooks, institutional documents was designed. The entries can be sorted according to one or more categories (e.g., research methods, focus, language). Thirty 90-120 minute EMI classes across five contexts (economics, law, IT/computer science, medicine and journalism) were observed and video recorded, and the lecturers of these classes were interviewed (see interview in Appendix). The video-recordings were transcribed, and an EMI lecture corpus was created. A panel of 12 judges participated in a three-day standard-setting workshop to align local assessment to the CEFR scale. Finally, 4 training workshops for EMI content teachers were organized at four different locations with a total of 40 participants. The standard-setting allowed us to obtain concrete results about the minimum English proficiency level required for teaching EMI courses, as well as the linguistic and interactive skills required for successful communication. The results from the standard-setting already informed the policy development at UM. The EMI database and the EMI lecture corpus are available to researchers and practitioners who are interested in finding existing research or are willing to analyze EMI lectures. The workshops for EMI teachers were very successful. Both workshop materials and the EMI Handbook are available for future use. One of the workshop was held online with participants outside the partner universities. The multiplier participants showed great interest in using the EMI Handbook and obtaining access to the EMI database and the EMI corpus. In our opinion the TAEC project has succeeded in developing and implementing a transnational and sustainable framework for a more qualified use of EMI practices across European HEIs.