1

English-medium instruction
Internationalizing Higher
(EMI) in European Higher
Education Institutions
Education Area

Improving the overall quality Basque Autonomous Community

Spain (BAC)
of education at the institutions

Italy
Preparing students for a global University of the Basque
world Country (UBC)
France

Spanish
Attracting more international Netherlands
students
Basque
Germany
Providing students with skills
for a global job market English
Poland

Improving quality of research Finland

and development European Commission’
Objective:
To promote
multilingualism through
MT +>2
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Research Locale
University of Basque Country

5,300 teaching staff 45, 000 students

1,700 administration
personnel

Multilingualism Programme (2005)

1. To continue at tertiary level with the experimental trilingual SUBJECTS

programme implemented at pre-university level;

2. To improve local students’ proficiency in a foreign language Basque

and provide students with specialized language and access to
research in the foreign language;
Spanish

3. To facilitate the pursuit of postgraduate degrees abroad;

Foreign Language

4. To improve students’ work/career prospects; and

5. To attract foreign students and teachers


1st Research Question
Do local students, teaching
staff and administration
personnel show different
opinions about EMI and
multilingualism at
university?
4th EMI Results
-AP and TS were more
positive regarding
supporting the presence of
English at the university.
- LS do not agree with the
presence of EMI.
- All were unhappy on
students’ lack of foreign
language competence.
3
2nd Sample
648 respondents 3rd Instrument
-495 local students (LS)
- 103 teaching staff (TS) -Questionnaire (open-
- 50 admin personnel (AP) ended and closed items)
- Open-ended: multilingual
university, introduction of
EMI and coexistence of
Basque and English
-written in Spanish or
Basque
Language Friction and
multilingual policies in
higher education: the
stakeholders’ view
Doiz, Lasagabaster and
Sierra (2014)
6th Multilingualism Results
5th Coexistence of English -AP and TS were more
and Basque Results supportive of the presence of
multilingualism in the
-LS demand to have more university than the LS who
opportunities to learn provided more comments on
Basque bec. English is a the disadvantages of the
threat to Basque spread of multilingualism.
normalization process.
- AP and TS believe that
English has no negative
influence on the promotion
of Basque.
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Acceptance of the
flexibility of the target
language

Implications for the

Implementation of EMI
Revision of the role of the
and Multilingual Language
L1 in the classroom
Policies

Accepting translanguaging
in the classroom