In 2009, as part of the move towards increased internationalisation, the Department of Human Nutrition at the Faculty of Life Sciences (LIFE) at the University of Copenhagen started running its MSc programme in English. This proved in many cases to be a struggle for students and teaching staff alike, apparently leading to huge increases in exam failure rates and a decline in the number of students applying for the MSc programme.
The focused feedback from the lecturers at Human Nutrition received in connection with their TOEPAS results prompted the department to consider how to tackle the language problems of the students. The department of Human Nutrition decided to enlist the services of CIP to pilot a workshop for students on how to successfully participate in EMI courses. The goal was to equip students with tools and strategies to help them meet the challenges of EMI. Consequently, the exam results seemed to improve almost to their pre-EMI levels and the number of students applying has increased.
The student workshop was run again in 2011, this time with an additional workshop aimed at giving teachers similar tools and strategies to enable them to both help students and themselves cope more easily with the problems of teaching through the medium of English.
This presentation will focus on the content of the workshop and the formative feedback the students received in connection with their assessment results.