Abstract
This talk responds to the need to foster collaboration between language teaching experts, language policy makers and EMI content lecturers by raising awareness of the affective factors at play in the EMI classroom. In our talk, we will report on a recent study conducted at the University of Padova (Italy): drawing on data from a questionnaire (n. 55 respondents) and two focus group interviews (n. 9 students), the study explores students’ attitudes to translanguaging (see for example Paulsrud et al., 2021) and the emergence of plurilingual identities. The context is that of two English-taught programmes that attract high numbers of international students, the Bachelor’s degree in Psychological Science and the Master’s degree in English Studies. The findings of the study shed light on various affective factors at play in the EMI classroom, ranging from the cognitive demands of achieving scholarship in academia by means of English and the interactional demands of using English as a tool for intercultural dialogue, to the construction of a plurilingual self in which English co-exists and interacts with other languages. With the aim of fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, the talk will also highlight implications for language policy as well as for the education of EMI content lecturers.
Reference
Paulsrud, B. A., Tian, Z. and Toth, J. (eds.) (2021) English-Medium Instruction and Translanguaging. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.