Developing academic language and skills as a support for content learning in higher education: a proposal of an open educational resource
| Autor | Marta Martín-Gilete |
| Cargo del Autor | University of Extremadura |
| Páginas | 507-523 |
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CAPÍTULO 27
DEVELOPING ACADEMIC LANGUAGE AND SKILLS
AS A SUPPORT FOR CONTENT LEARNING IN HIGHER
EDUCATION: A PROPOSAL OF AN
OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE
MARTA MARTÍN-GILETE
University of Extremadura
1. INTRODUCTION
The internationalisation of European Higher Education Institutions
plays a significant role in the need to prepare Higher Education students
for globalised working environments (Macaro, 2018). Based on the need
for training university students for successful academic performance, in
recent decades, there has been a growing interest in the promotion of
educational approaches aiming at developing the internationalisation of
European Higher Education Institutions (Knight, 2005). This process at-
tracts foreign students, i.e., it favours the enrolment of students with
other first languages (L1s), and it improves the language competence of
domestic students by enriching learning with cultural experience, pre-
paring them for globalisation, and improving the intercultural skills of
home university students. It also contributes to sharpening the interna-
tional profile of Higher Education Institutions as it enhances the profile
of the university within the country and establishes agreements and ex-
changes with other institutions. Likewise, this process contributes to
brain gain as it attracts foreign staff and doctoral students (Wächter &
Mainworm, 2014, p. 54).
Drawing on this current concern about the internationalisation of Euro-
pean Higher Education Institutions, there are two main lines of develop-
ment. While “internationalisation abroad” (Knight & de Wit, 2018) re-
fers to all types of education across borders (mobility of students,
挑腸煩般挽腸挑
instructors, scholars, programs, courses, curriculum, and projects), “in-
ternationalisation at home” consists of a series of practices devoted to
promoting activities that help students develop international understand-
ing and intercultural skills at their home universities (Beelen & Jones,
2015).
In recent years, a growing number of educational programs have
emerged intending to foster internationalisation “at home” in order to
develop 21st-century transversal skills and to increase employability
across the European Union (Wächter & Maiworn, 2014). The use of an
additional language, English in most cases, in the teaching of discipli-
nary subjects has played a significant role in enhancing interdisciplinary
educational approaches. The employment of English as a Medium of
Instruction has attracted a great deal of attention on its impact on second
language (L2) learning in Higher Education and due to the resulting sig-
nificance of this approach to increasing graduates’ employability in the
digital era. For instance, English-Medium Instruction programmes have
experienced a substantial growth of 239% in seven years, from 2007 to
2014 (Wätcher & Maiworn, 2014). In parallel with this, English-Me-
dium Instruction students’ perceptions and linguistic needs have been
widely researched (Aguilar & Rodríguez, 2012; Jian et al., 2019;
Macaro, 2018). However, to the best of my knowledge, very little atten-
tion has been paid to other factors, such as their training needs and the
design of materials addressing Higher Education students’ needs on ac-
ademic language and linguistic skills in English-Medium Instruction
contexts (Aguilar & Rodríguez, 2012; Piquer-Píriz & Castellano-Risco,
2021).
The present study explores some of the possible implications of Content
and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and its adaptation to the
Higher Education instructional setting –Integrating Content and Lan-
guage in Higher Education (ICLHE)– in specific learning environments
at the University of Extremadura (Spain). This Higher Education Insti-
tution, in the last decade, has expressed its commitment to the imple-
mentation of a series of practices to promote educational approaches
aiming at enhancing internationalisation “at home” (Beelen & Jones,
2015).
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