Intercultural English as a medium and outcome of instruction: The case of the University of Trento, Italy

This paper presents a critical reflection on the role and meaning of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in higher education, grounded on the findings of a survey on EMI conducted by the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for the Quality and Innovation of Didactics (LIQuID) of the University of Trento (Italy). Trento strongly advocates the need to improve its international profile, switching from a local to a global perspective in teaching practice. This is consistent with an internationalisation drive in higher education in Italy and in universities worldwide, for which the adoption of EMI is considered a necessary step. LIQuID thus developed a questionnaire with the aim of investigating faculty members’ self-evaluation as EMI-users as well as their opinion on institutional and didactic aims, teaching practices, and learning assessment methods, comparing, when possible, their experience in teaching in L1 and L2. Data referring to a total of 150 EMI-modules offered in the academic year 2018-19 were collected. Starting from this dataset regarding Trento’s experience, this contribution discusses the adoption of EMI from the local point of view, since internationalisation and one-size-does-not-fit-all policies cannot overlook the specificities of the contexts in which they are implemented. This necessarily leads to a reflection regarding EMI as a global phenomenon. In particular, the survey’s results point at complex teaching-learning dynamics which may be associated to a spiral movement consisting of three laps: first, English is initially employed as a tool (medium) to reach general goals at a university level (i.e., innovation and internationalisation); second, English is used as ESP (English for Specific Purposes) to achieve subject-specific aims (i.e., improvement of students’ specialised language competences and professional profile); third, English as a Lingua Franca fosters the development of linguistic but also intercultural competences, thus mediating the shift from the local to the global context for both the University and the students. This is what I would call EMOI spiral movement, in which inter-cultural English is the Medium and the Outcome of Instruction: English language is the starting point, the medium and the outcome of a multifaceted educational process. Institutional programmes aimed at a truly effective internationalisation of higher education should not disregard the final step of this movement in favour of the others, since a diverse and inclusive university community is grounded upon the nurture of cultural and intercultural competences in addition to linguistic ones.