EMI Lecturers’ Training Needs: Towards the Construction of a Measurement Instrument

Abstract

English-medium instruction (EMI) is a relatively new phenomenon that has come to the fore in most higher education institutions (Dafouz and Smit 2019). It is spreading in an unprecedented manner and increasingly gaining ground globally. At the micro-level, lecturers are key stakeholders since they are the driving force in implementing EMI in the classroom. EMI lecturing involves more than delivering content through English; it is a complex process that requires pedagogical and methodological attention (Cots 2013; Fortanet-Gómez 2013; Morell 2018). Thus, to lecture successfully in EMI contexts, it is important to provide lecturers with specific training. Against this backdrop, the present study addresses EMI lecturers’ training needs, a relatively unexplored aspect (Fenton-Smith et al. 2017; Macaro 2018; Beaumont 2020). This study reports on the adequacy of a survey to explore lecturers’ EMI training needs and on the preliminary results derived from its administration to a group of EMI lecturers at a Spanish university. Findings revealed the suitability of the survey items to identify EMI lecturers’ training needs. Specifically, the findings indicated that, in general, EMI training courses should deal mainly with communication and language use, and pedagogy.