Teacher Cognition: EMI Lecturers at LIFE

Project description

This project examines how teaching behaviour and classroom practices in English-medium instruction (EMI) courses at the Faculty of Life Sciences (LIFE) at the University of Copenhagen (KU) can be described by Danish mother-tongue speakers of English (tenured professors) who have been certified on an internal proficiency test as having the necessary English language skills to cope with the communicative demands of graduate level teaching. Much of the current focus of research regarding the shift toward English-medium instruction in higher education in non-English countries has focused on the attitudes of the stakeholders, student preparedness and consequences of this shift on teaching and learning.

This study seeks to reveal underlying teacher cognitions in relation to professional identity, professional expertise and professional authority in relation to teaching outside one's mother tongue, as well as consider compensation strategies, linguistic and didactic, used for English-medium teaching. The results of this study will serve to shed light on continuing education needs of lecturers in this setting.

Download the entire PhD project as a PDF here.

Project participants

The PhD project is conducted by Joyce Kling Soren.

Financing

The project is financed by a 3-year PhD grant funded by the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Copenhagen.

Project period

1 February 2010 - 31 January 2013