Language Centres at a Crossroads

The aim of the paper is to offer some important insights into the topic of English Medium Instruction (EMI) at the university level. The topic of EMI is presented from the perspective of the particular Language Centre which operates in the Czech educational context. The theoretical background is represented by the current views on the general EMI methodology and on its potential overlaps with the area of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Besides, the key principles of task-based approaches to ELT are presented in order to illustrate the selected viewpoint of the aforementioned teaching methodologies. The theoretical analysis also focuses on the issues of learner beliefs and the students' coping strategies related to dealing with the specific educational content in a foreign language. The empirical part presents the results of two small-scale investigations, which were carried out in different teaching contexts. In accordance with the current models of learning strategies in the area of EMI, a questionnaire survey was conducted in the group of the students of transport engineering, and its results were primarily interpreted in terms of the perceived students' readiness for their potential learning of the specific content via EMI. The second investigation was based on the content analysis of the particular syllabus which was used for the real EMI course in the group of students of chemical engineering. The content analysis results were methodologically triangulated by means of the additional data, gathered by means of class observations and via the analysis of the real EMI participants' personal reflections. The outcomes of our investigations emphasise the complexity of introducing the EMI methodology in the university setting and they reveal some areas of its desirable further development. Our conclusions concern mainly the attitudinal dimension of the EMI learning design and the methodological issues in the area where "the content meets the language".

Cílem příspěvku je nabídnout vhled do problematiky tzv. English Medium Instructions (EMI) v univerzitním prostředí, a to optikou konkrétního Jazykového centra, působícího v českém vzdělávacím kontextu. Teoretický základ představují současné náhledy na obecnou metodologii EMI a na její potenciální přesahy do oblasti tzv. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Empirická část pak představuje výsledky dvou menších výzkumých šetření, jež byla realizována v různých výukových kontextech. Výsledky našich šetření upozorňují na komplexnost zavádění metodologie EMI do univerzitního prostředí a odhalují některé oblasti pro další potenciální rozvoj. Jedná se zejména o postojovou dimenzi učebního designu EMI a rovněž o metodologické otázky vztahující se k "setkávání specifického vzdělávacího obsahu s cizím jazykem".

Pavel Brebera works as Senior Lecturer at the Language Centre of the University Pardubice, Czech Republic. In his current job, he focuses mainly on teaching English for Specific Purposes and eLearning. His other professional activities include, for example, providing in-service teacher training at private language schools.