Teaching in English in higher education

Name: Teaching in English in higher education
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Author: Vera Zegers-Leberecht
ISBN: 9783846352458

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Vera Leberecht

Teaching in English in higher education

strategies – tips – support

Narr Francke Attempto Verlag Tübingen

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Dischingerweg 5 • D-72070 Tübingen

www.narr.de • info@narr.de

Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen.

ISBN 978-3-8233-5245-8 (Print)

ISBN 978-3-8463-5245-8 (ePub)

Personally, I find the best way to use books is to read them. Of course, this is only true for good books. But then, you usually only know whether a book is a good book after you have read it. As I have great confidence in my readers’ professionalism and common sense, I trust that you will find out quickly whether this book is worth your time. Like many of its fellows, it could simply be read from front to back as it has a structure the author has chosen on purpose; likewise, you could skip parts and directly dive into the sections that address your most urgent needs and wants.

Above all, I hope that you approach this book with an open mind and a willingness to learn and be surprised. If you actually enjoy yourself for a moment or two while reading this book, I would be happy to have reached one of my main goals.

1 Introduction: What this book wants and is – and what it is not

Congratulations! You have just taken another hurdle on your way of becoming a better lecturer in your discipline in English. You think I am exaggerating? Quite honestly, I think so, too. It is just that every book needs a first sentence, and this was the first sentence that came to my mind when I wrote this paragraph.

Having admitted that, I can honestly say I do believe you have taken a hurdle. After all, you have just made it through the first paragraph of a book on teaching in English in higher education, and this might feel like a first, if small, success. If it does, you are on the right track; if, in contrast, this is already starting to bore you, and you find yourself thinking where else you could look for more substantial input on teaching in English, this book might not be the right resource for you. In this case, feel free to pass it on to a colleague and continue your professional journey on a different path.

If, by now, you are still not quite sure whether it makes sense for you to continue reading, the next few pages are for you: They will let you know whom I address and what I intended when I wrote this book; they also provide a short preview of each chapter, so you know better what to expect.

So for whom have I written this book? I imagine that you resemble the participants in my workshops on teaching in English who typically work as professors, lecturers, or instructors at universities and universities of applied sciences in Germany or its neighbouring countries. I suppose you would describe yourself as someone who

is a more or less competent and experienced professional in their academic discipline,

is more or less experienced in teaching, supervising and supporting students in higher education, and

more or less enjoys teaching their subject matter (I do hope you go for the “more” option in this case!).

And I am probably on the safe side when I suppose that you are a member of the fast-growing crowd of teaching staff in higher education who have more or less recently been confronted with the glad – or not so glad – tidings that they are expected to share their knowledge with their students in English. If you have not been involved in international cooperations for decades or were lucky enough to grow up in a plurilingual family, you may initially have been shocked or, at least, slightly surprised and insecure; you may have wondered whether the relics of your high-school English would suffice to keep your students in the room for the duration of a complete lecture or seminar session. On the other hand, you might be one of the many European instructors in higher education who are pretty comfortable about teaching in English and just would like to refine their skills and competences. If you can relate to any of the above characterisations, this book has been written for you.

This takes us to the next question: What do I intend with this book? The answer is simple: I want to encourage you. As stated on its cover, this book provides strategies, practical tips, and support for English-medium higher education. It aims to equip you for taking your own steps of putting English-medium teaching into practice at your own pace and in ways that suit you and your institutional contexts. Gradually, you can expand your comfort zone of sharing your expert knowledge in a language that is neither your own nor most of your students’ first language.

Let me underline it once more: This is a book about practice. It is a direct outcome of more than a decade’s work with practitioners teaching at tertiary-level institutions in European countries with other official languages than English. Many of its topics have been shared by and discussed with workshop participants. As a result of this hands-on focus, many issues related to English-medium teaching in higher education have not made their way into this book: It does not give an overview of the current research and theory on English-medium instruction (EMI). It does not deal with theoretical considerations and concepts of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) or English as a lingua franca (ELF). If you would like to learn more about the theoretical foundations of teaching in English in higher education, you will find other books that are more suitable than the one you are holding in your hands. To get you started, I have put suggestions for further reading at the end of many chapters of this book.

What can you expect from this book? Chapter 2 sets the scene with prerequisites for becoming more competent and confident about teaching in English in academia. Obviously, when I talk about prerequisites, I do not mean diplomas or certificates but helpful attitudes and competences you acquire as you teach and communicate with students and colleagues in and outside the classroom. Each of the four subchapters of chapter 2 is complemented by hands-on suggestions for developing and applying these prerequisites.

Chapter 3 broadens the horizon further. It starts by depicting the manifold experiences of lecturers who have been on the road of English-medium teaching for a while. These experiences show that challenges and difficulties with switching to English as a medium of instruction in higher education are far from individual. The chapter provides a lot of questions as well as space for notes and reflection. This is to encourage you to think about your own answers, and to discuss these issues with superiors, colleagues, and students.

Chapter 4 is one big plea for using clear, simple, plain English in lectures and seminars. This aspect has made it into a separate chapter because, to me, it is one of the major differences between many continental European academic traditions and cultures and their Anglo-American counterparts. The chapter provides some statistics, theoretical considerations, and practical strategies, so you can decide which approaches will be most appropriate and useful for your own student audiences and communicative goals.

Leaving theory behind, chapter 5 provides tips and activities to handle the daily chores of English-medium teaching in higher education more effectively and efficiently. It includes ideas for activating students and for using writing as well as some online resources.

Finally, chapter 6 provides glossaries with useful words and phrases for communicative situations in English-medium teaching. They include general academic vocabulary as well as language for classroom management and oral exams, to make sure you will never be speechless again.

I hope that this brief overview leaves you with the impression that there is very little magic about switching to English as a medium of instruction and that you have long been familiar with many, if not all, of these topics, ideas, and phrases. Like in many other areas in life, for things to work, you simply need to put into practice what you know. Are you ready to do that? Then let’s go!

2 Making it work: What is needed to succeed in English-medium teaching?

When you ask me what I think is the most important factor for succeeding in English-medium teaching, I can answer quickly: practice. I firmly believe we become better English-medium teachers by simply going into the classroom and doing it. I know extremely few people – and I am sure you do not know many either – who have learnt to ride a bike by looking at other people on bicycles, by talking, reading or writing articles about it, by creating theoretical models of cycling and presenting them at conferences or, even, by writing blogs about cycling or watching online video tutorials. The same is true for teaching in English: We learn it by doing it. And this does not change when we call the whole thing “embedded social practice”.

Now I can almost hear you object: ‘But I know this! Why do you state all these things that are completely obvious?!’ Well, that is probably because I agree with Erich Kästner, the well-known German writer, who once said that knowledge alone does not turn people into good teachers.1 I am convinced that you know most, if not all, of the things I have been saying on the previous pages; and this may not change much as you continue reading. However, especially in professional contexts, we sometimes make choices intuitively without being aware of whether they are useful, and why. Therefore, every now and then, we are well-advised to step back and reflect on

the choices we have made,

what we have learnt from these choices, and

whether the competences or skills we have acquired as a consequence of these choices are still the ones we need, or

how we could expand our knowledge and develop our skills in other, more efficient and effective ways.

Hence, I invite you to be open for some food for thought, and for becoming an even better teacher of your subject in English.

Lecturers who attend my workshops sometimes expect that they will turn into confident, fluent, near-native speakers of English in one day. Of course, that is not how it works. Mastering a language takes time, practice, and many opportunities to speak without being afraid of making mistakes. But it does not end there. I see way too many individual lecturers who are burdened with the responsibility of making English-medium teaching work. Yet, not individuals but whole institutions of higher education are responsible for ensuring that their teaching and adminstrative staff and their students are provided with structural, professional support for learning the language (cf. Hochschulrektorenkonferenz 2011). And there are more issues that deserve attention. The following four areas need to be dealt with, early and profoundly, if English-medium teaching in academia is to become more than a one-semester hype:

1 subject matter knowledge,

2 general English language skills,

3 didactics / educational skills, and

4 academic language.

The next sections look more closely at each of these areas.

References and further reading

Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (2011). Sprachenpolitik an deutschen Hochschulen. Empfehlung der 11. Mitgliederversammlung der HRK am 22. 11. 2011. Retrieved from www.hrk.de/uploads/media/Empfehlung_Sprachenpolitik_MV_22112011.pdf on 15 August 2019.

2.1 Subject matter knowledge

Your interest and expertise in your subject matter are probably the foremost reasons why at a certain point in your career (last week, or many years ago) you suddenly found yourself in front of a group of students, trying to share with them some of the things that interest and fascinate you.

I assume that you have spent most years of your professional career acquiring and expanding your subject matter knowledge. Depending on whether you are affiliated to a university or a university of applied sciences, and depending on your discipline (used here in the sense of “academic specialisation”, not your willingness to work hard), this will have happened to varying extents within and outside academic settings.

Certainly, you are aware of the fact that to teach your subject matter in English, you need to know what you are talking about. In our context, let us focus on the language element of this endeavour. In other words, I want to draw your attention to terminology, i.e., subject-specific terms and phrases: To teach your subject matter, you need to understand it, and you need to be able to use the correct words to share your knowledge, understanding, and expertise.

Depending on your specific field of research, you may feel comfortable about reading English texts – or not. Over time, you may have turned into a more (or less) experienced writer of research-related genres such as papers, articles, conference abstracts, grant proposals, a doctoral dissertation, habilitation thesis, etc. In sum, both your passive and active knowledge of English terminology may be considerable, whether you are aware of it or not.

In addition, by pursuing an academic career and having survived it to this day (more or less successfully and happily), you must have proven that you are able and willing to study. So here is the good news: As you are facing the challenge of sharing your content expertise in English, the first thing you need to do is simple: Learn the words. Study the terminology. Master your subject’s vocabulary.

No, this does not happen overnight – or within a one-day workshop. But there is no magic about it either. It just takes some time and focused effort because you already know how to do it. You just need to do it. Here are some ideas, or reminders, how you could approach this (with thanks to numerous colleagues and former workshop participants):

Read English textbooks, books, papers, journal articles, and professional blogs on your subject. The trick here is to “take off your content glasses” and to “put on your language glasses” every now and then; with that, I mean that you focus on language and style rather than content, and that you pay attention to familiar and new words that you could use in your own teaching. Maybe you even want to take notes. Decide how you profit most from this kind of professional reading.

Search for online and offline dictionaries, glossaries, and databases on your subject. They are invaluable (which, somehow paradoxically for non-English speakers, means very valuable!) sources of professional development for English-medium teachers.

Watch videos on your subject: Many universities in the Anglo-Saxon world provide online lectures and training courses. When these courses are aimed at students, you can use them as examples of how first-language speakers of English present their contents. The courses aimed at instructors might provide useful tips on good lecturing in addition to the subject terminology.

Attend international conferences and proactively use them as stages for presenting your research. Expand your small-talk competences in coffee breaks and at conference dinners, and you might come home with a new English joke or two in your repertoire …

Start writing your own blog, or look for opportunities to contribute to existing blogs as a guest writer. This is a good way to practise reaching out to students, fellow researchers, and interested readers in the general public.

What about setting up international cooperations, working groups, or research projects at your university, or breathing new life into a collaboration or project that has been fading away in a remote corner of your department for a while? Maybe a cooperation with a company or research department in another part of the world would be a logical spin-off from one of your culturally diverse classes with Erasmus students or other international students? Or could you benefit from the professional contacts of a visiting or guest lecturer? The fact that English is used in workplaces all over the world opens doors to many regions where people are used to communicating in English and are eager to cooperate internationally. Many smaller countries, e.g., the Benelux and Scandinavian countries, have long traditions of using English and are often able and willing to liaise with interested individuals or institutions. The German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD) provides information on opportunities for individual and institutional cooperation (www.daad.de/hochschulen/de/ (in German; last accessed on 22 August 2019). Inspiration for and information on specific international cooperations can be found on many universities’ websites.

If you are looking for something that requires less commitment than setting up a complete cooperation programme and pays off in the short term, you could involve your students in a brainstorming session to explore which strategies would be useful to expand both your own and your students’ active terminology. Who said that you are solely responsible for vocabulary/terminology development in your class? What about joining forces to create a glossary? When you emphasise that students are responsible for developing their command of subject terminology, you may also raise their awareness for ensuring that everybody in class uses the terminology accurately and consistently. Maybe creating a glossary, or contributing to it, could even be a part of the grade your students receive?

Finally, become a networker: Share your experiences, be they pleasant or awful, and interview colleagues who are a few steps ahead of you on the path of English-medium teaching about their failures and successes. Find out which strategies have worked for them, and be open for activities and approaches that may not have worked for others but might be just right for you.

Whatever you decide to do to develop your subject terminology, make sure you start soon and take steps – big or small – regularly.

Time for reflection:

What can I do to expand my English subject terminology?

Which practical steps can I take by the end of this week to get me going?

Please allow me one final remark here: Yes, expanding your subject terminology takes time. But remember, whatever language you decide to learn takes time. And, in a way, the terminology of your field of research is yet another language. To master it, most of us will have to make an effort, and need to practise. But this experience can bring us closer to our students who are usually facing not only this single challenge, but a whole load of them: They do not just have to learn some new English words but also come to grips with the principles, methods, theories, models, contents, and researcher identities these words represent! So regardless of the language in which you share your subject with students, never forget that you are the expert! Your students are usually aware of that and perceive you as exactly that: the expert. It might feel awkward to have students in your class whose general English language skills are much better than yours because they were born in Canterbury, Connecticut, or Canada, or have recently returned from an exchange year in Northern Ireland. But remember: You are the one in the room who knows much more about fluid dynamics, the autopoietic reproduction of social systems, or robotics than they do – and that is exactly why they attend your class.

2.2 General English language skills

While it is essential for English-medium teachers to know their subject terminology, terminology alone will not help you to make it through a 90-minute lecture or seminar – and to keep your students from dozing off or running away. You will need a certain level of fluency in what is usually referred to as general language, too.

I sometimes talk to lecturers who are experts in their fields of research and have accumulated many years of teaching experience but are still insecure about switching to English-medium instruction. They usually state that they feel restricted in their use of humour or idiomatic expressions when they switch to English; this, they say, prevents them from expressing themselves authentically and invitingly. This always reminds me of a colleague who one day decided to make real work of his use of humour in his English-medium course. He started spending some of his preparation time on thinking about, or even actively searching for at least one joke, one humourous remark or one metaphor; he would look up the correct English wording, and put down in his notes where exactly he would use it. Usually, he learnt the joke by heart; sometimes, he included the exact wording in his notes. Before you frown on such tedious work that must kill each sparkle of spontaneity, I would like to remind you that many experienced professional speakers who give enthralling presentations do this all the time – and, of course, actors and comedians spend a lot of their time off stage doing the same. Even though they may seem to be extremely spontaneous, full of ideas, and totally relaxed sputtering out all those funny ideas coming to their minds at that very moment, all these professionals are far from leaving that to chance. In particular, most speakers to whom every word seems to come so naturally, spend many hours on rehearsing their performances. There is nothing despicable about practising how to start or finish a lecture in a foreign language. It might make you feel a bit – or more than a bit – like being an absolute beginner again, and most of us do not enjoy that feeling. However, when you switch to English as a medium of teaching, in a sense, you are a beginner again. Letting go of unrealistic expectations and giving yourself the time to learn and adapt can be a relief. As you work on enhancing your general English language skills, you might find that you profit from strategies, competences, and contents that go beyond your academic research interests. Here are a few suggestions; get inspired and go along with what works best for you:

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