Teacher Educators’ Professional Identity in English-Medium Instruction at a Finnish University
Abstract
Although different forms of English-medium instruction (EMI) are being recognised, the different ways in which EMI can impact the pedagogical activities and expertise of higher education educators have received less attention. Using face-to-face and written interviews with nine teacher educators at a Finnish university, this study examines the most important aspects teacher educators perceive in their work through EMI and how these aspects connect to the understanding of their professional identity. The study is theoretically premised on the interconnected concepts of pedagogical doing, pedagogical being, pedagogical relating, and pedagogical language awareness. The thematically analysed data highlighted the ways in which pedagogical being, doing, and relating revolve around the presence and role of the foreign language in EMI, as well as the concurrent disjunctures and opportunities EMI creates. Pedagogical being informed EMI teacher educators’ orientation to their work and the different ways language impinges on the sense of self as the teacher educators share how they try to understand and respond to the disjunctures of EMI. In terms of pedagogical doing, EMI impinges on how teacher educators enact their practice and the relationships developed with students. However, the focus of pedagogical relating addresses the relationship between the EMI teacher educators and their workplace. The findings from this study will hopefully contribute to the development of EMI teacher preparation and support critical discussions on the ‘Englishisation’ of higher education.
Downloads
References
Airey, J., Lauridsen, K. M., Räsänen, A., Salö, L., & Schwach, V. (2017). The expansion of English-medium instruction in the Nordic countries: Can top-down university language policies encourage bottom-up disciplinary literacy goals? Higher Education, 73, 561–576. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-015-9950-2
Bakhtin, M. (1993). Toward a philosophy of the act (V. Liapunov, Trans.). University of Texas. (Original work published 1993).
Barkhuizen, G. (2017). Reflections on language teacher identity research. Routledge.
Bourke, T., Ryan, M., & Ould, P. (2018). How do teacher educators use professional standards in their practice? Teaching and Teacher Education, 75, 83–92. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.06.005
Clavert, M., Löfström, E., & Nevgi, A. (2015). Pedagogically aware academics’ conceptions of change agency in the fields of science and technology. International Journal for Academic Development, 20(3), 252–265. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2015.1064430
Coyle, D. (2015). Strengthening integrated learning: Towards a new era for pluriliteracies and intercultural learning. Latin American Journal of Content & Language Integrated Learning, 8(2), 84–103. https://doi.org/10.5294/5915
Dafouz, E. (2018). English-medium instruction and teacher education programmes in higher education: Ideological forces and imagined identities at work. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(5), 540–552. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2018.1487926
Danielewicz, J. (2001). Teaching selves. Identity, pedagogy, and teacher education. State University of New York Press.
Dimova, S., Hultgren, A. K., & Jensen, C. (Eds.). (2015). English-medium instruction in European higher education. De Gruyter Mouton.
Doiz, A., Lasagabaster, D., & Sierra, J. M. (2011). Internationalisation, multilingualism and English-medium instruction. World Englishes, 30(3), 345–359. https://doi.org/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-971X.2011.01718.x
Dubow, G., & Gundermann, S. (2017). Certifying the linguistic and communicative competencies of teachers in English-medium instruction programmes. Journal of the European Confederation of Language Centres in Higher Education, 7(2), 475–487. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1515/cercles-2017-0021
Edwards-Groves, C. J., & Hoare, R. L. (2012). “Talking to Learnâ€: Focusing teacher education on dialogue as a core practice for teaching and learning. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 37(8), 82–100. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2012v37n8.8
Flander, A., & Klem, M. (2014). Will academics drive or obstruct the Slovenian government’s internationalisation agenda for higher education? Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal, 4(2), 27–48. https://www.cepsj.si/index.php/cepsj/article/view/202/117
Guest, G., MacQueen, K. M., & Namey, E. E. (2012). Applied thematic analysis. SAGE Publications, Inc.
Hahl, K., Järvinen, H.-M., & Juuti, K. (2016). Accommodating to English-medium instruction in teacher education in Finland. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 26(3), 291–310. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12093
Hennink, M. M., Kaiser, B. N., & Marconi, V. C. (2017). Code saturation versus meaning saturation: How many interviews are enough? Qualitative Health Research, 27(4), 591–608. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732316665344
Hökkä, P., Eteläpelto, A., & Rasku-Puttonen, H. (2012). The professional agency of teacher educators amid academic discourses. Journal of Education for Teaching, 38(1), 83–102. https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2012.643659
Jenkins, J., & Wingate, U. (2015). Staff and students’ perceptions of English language policies and practices in ‘international’ universities: A case study from the UK. Higher Education Review, 47(2), 47–73.
Joffe, H. (2012). Thematic analysis. In D. Harper & A. Thompson (Eds.), Qualitative research methods in mental health and psychotherapy: A Guide for students and practitioners (pp. 209–223). Wiley-Blackwell.
Kassaye Alemu, S. (2014). An appraisal of the internationalisation of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa. Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal, 4(2), 71–90. https://www.cepsj.si/index.php/cepsj/article/view/205/119
Khalyapina, L. (Ed.) (2020). Examining Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) theories and practices. Information Science Reference.
Lasagabaster, D. (2018). Fostering team teaching: Mapping out a research agenda for English-medium instruction at university level. Language Teaching, 51(3), 400–416. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444818000113
Lo, Y. Y., & Macaro, E. (2015). Getting used to content and language integrated learning: What can classroom interaction reveal? The Language Learning Journal, 43(3), 239–255. https://doi.org/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09571736.2015.1053281
Maaranen, K., Kynäslahti, H., Byman, R., Jyrhämä, R., & Sintonen, S. (2019). Teacher education matters: Finnish teacher educators’ concerns, beliefs, and values. European Journal of Teacher Education, 42(2), 211–227. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2019.1566317
Macaro, E., Curle, S., Pun, J., An, J., & Dearden, J. (2018). A systematic review of English medium instruction in higher education. Language Teaching, 51(1), 36–76. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444817000350
Moate, J. (2013). Reconceptualising teacherhood through the lens of foreign-language mediation [Doctoral thesis]. Jyväskylä University Digital Repository. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-5034-7
Moate, J. (2011). The impact of foreign language mediated teaching on teachers’ sense of professional integrity in the CLIL classroom. European Journal of Teacher Education, 34(3), 333–346. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2011.585023
Norton, B. (2016). Identity and language learning: Back to the future. TESOL Quarterly, 50(2), 475–479. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.293
O’Dowd, R. (2018). The training and accreditation of teachers for English medium instruction: An overview of practice in European universities. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(5), 553–563. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2018.1491945
Pantić, N. (2012). Teacher education reforms between higher education and general education transformations in South-Eastern Europe: Reviewing the evidence and scoping the issues. Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal, 2(4), 71–90. https://www.cepsj.si/index.php/cepsj/article/view/337/182
Raiker, A. (2020). Praxis, pedagogy and teachers’ professionalism in England. Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal, 10(3), 11–30. https://doi.org/10.26529/cepsj.874
Ruohotie-Lyhty, M. (2019). Understanding language teacher identities: Conceptualisations, practices and change. In G. Barkhuizen (Ed.), Qualitative research topics in language teacher education (pp. 81–85). Routledge.
Russell, T., & Loughran, J. (Eds.). (2007). Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education: Values, relationships and practices. Routledge.
Saarinen, T., & Nikula, T. (2013). Implicit policy, invisible language: Policies and practices of international degree programmes in Finnish higher education. In A. Doiz, D. Lsagabaster, & J. M. Sierra (Eds.), English-medium instruction at universities: Global challenges (pp. 131–150). Multilingual Matters.
Schmidt-Unterberger, B. (2018). The English-medium paradigm: A conceptualisation of English-medium teaching in higher education. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(5), 527–539. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2018.1491949
Simpson, A., Sang, G., Wood, J., Wang, Y., & Ye, B. (2018). A dialogue about teacher agency: Australian and Chinese perspectives. Teaching and Teacher Education, 75, 316–326. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.07.002
Smith, K. (2016). Partnerships in teacher education – Going beyond the rhetoric, with reference to the Norwegian context. Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal, 6(3), 17–36. https://www.cepsj.si/index.php/cepsj/article/view/63/24
Tillema, H., & Kremer-Hayon, L. (2005). Facing dilemmas: Teacher educators’ ways of constructing a pedagogy of teacher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 10(2), 203–217. https://doi.org/10.1080/1356251042000337954
Trent, J. (2017). “Being a professor and doing EMI properly isn’t easyâ€. An identity-theoretic investigation of content teachers’ attitudes towards EMI at a university in Hong Kong. In B. Fenton-Smith, P. Humphreys, & I. Walkinshaw (Eds.), English medium instruction in higher education in Asia-Pacific: From policy to pedagogy (pp. 219–239). Springer.
Vähäsantanen, K. (2015). Professional agency in the stream of change: Understanding educational change and teachers’ professional identities. Teaching and Teacher Education, 47, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.11.006
Vähäsantanen, K., Paloniemi, S., Räikkönen, E., & Hökkä, P. (2020). Professional agency in a university context: Academic freedom and fetters. Teaching and Teacher Education, 89(103000). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.103000
van Manen, M. (2008). Pedagogical sensitivity and teachers practical knowing-in-action. Peking University Education Review, 1–23. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1198/87d5abee4067b278954f5183e0bb8f925b45.pdf
Wilkinson, R. (2013). English-medium instruction at a Dutch university: Challenges and pitfalls. In A. Doiz, D. Lsagabaster, & J. M. Sierra (Eds.), English-medium instruction at universities: Global challenges (pp. 3–25). Multilingual Matters.
Wilkinson, R. (2018). Content and language integration at universities? Collaborative reflections. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(5), 607–615. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2018.1491948
In order to ensure both the widest dissemination and protection of material published in CEPS Journal, we ask Authors to transfer to the Publisher (Faculty of Education, University of Ljubljana) the rights of copyright in the Articles they contribute. This enables the Publisher to ensure protection against infringement.
