Abstract
The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (unibz) was founded as a trilingual University in 1997, the first and only university adopting a trilingual higher education approach in Europe.The objective of its multilingual and international tertiary education offering is to promote interaction between the cultures and languages of the area and to encourage intercultural dialogue. Accordingly, programmes at unibz are taught in German, Italian and English language. The Faculty of Education also offers subjects taught in a fourth language, Ladin, an ancient language of the region.
To support students in their effort to achieve advanced language competences in all three major languages, the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano has adopted a specific language strategy. This strategy poses a few challenges with regard to general language courses, LSP-courses for subject specific needs of faculties, and academic literacy courses to foster innovative and effective teaching methods in multilingual classes. To meet those challenges constructive alignment appears to be the best approach to achieve multiple goals.