ESP, EMI and interculturality: How internationalised are university curricula in Catalonia?

This study analyses Internationalisation at Home (IaH) courses across a wide range of bachelor’s degrees, from humanities to hard sciences, in public universities in Catalonia, as an in-depth analysis of a South European context. IaH courses selected for analysis included courses (i) on international topics, (ii) taught in English and focusing on content (English-medium Instruction, EMI) and (iii) focusing on language, i.e. English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Results point to a high presence of international content courses, especially in humanities and social sciences, followed by EMI courses, although quantitatively scarce and mainly found in engineering. ESP courses are the least present despite their potential to prepare students for EMI. Reasons that may account for this IaH picture are presented. All in all, it seems that current policies leave language and intercultural competence in the hands of content lecturers, who may not have explicit language and intercultural learning outcomes in mind while it appears that the potential role of ESP as an internationalisation driver may be neglected. This paper thus argues for giving visibility to ESP courses and lecturers in their role for the promotion of curricular internationalisation.Postprint (published version

Integrating intercultural competence in ESP and EMI: From theory to practice

As internationalisation policies like English - medium Instruction (EMI) are increasingly implemented in European higher education, EMI and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) classrooms become small international spaces where local students’ intercultural skil ls can be developed. I suggest that the internationalised higher education poses challenges also to non - mobile students, who find themselves in culturally diverse classrooms where English is used as the medium of instruction. The aim of this study is twofo ld. It first attempts to provide a research - based framework that accounts for the reasons why Intercultural Competence (IC) should become a learning outcome in ESP and EMI courses, with an emphasis on ESP. Second, it explores two ways in which this integra tion could take place drawing on Holmes & O’Neill ’s ethnographic model ( 2012). The seminar genre is proposed to showcase IC integration, as participation helps students practice their English skills and provides them with opportunities to develop disciplin ary knowledge while debating on a specific topic. In brief, this study suggests that both ESP and EMI courses have the potential of preparing students for a future professional career in a globalised world and that ESP lecturers, in particular, emerge as t he best prepared professionals for teaching intercultural skills.Postprint (published version

Metadiscourse in posters is both textual and visual

Interest in genre analysis is far from declining. Just as information technology is moulding communication and how people communicate in the twenty-first century, scientific communities, academic members and other knowledge-dissemination means are also changing. Because academic and professional genres are not an exception, the impact of visual information on scientific communication is rendering multimodal analysis an increasingly necessary aspect for genre analysis to consider. This book responds to this new reality in the sense that it presents a multimodal genre analysis of academic poster presentations at conferences. The study aims to explore the textual and visual metadiscourse strategies used by poster presenters in order to make their research clear and to interact and engage with their readership. Due to the inexistence of reliable and representative data of the academic poster genre, a corpus of 120 posters from three disciplines (Law, Clinical Psychology and High Energy Particle Physics) had to be created by the author to find out whether there were any cross-disciplinary differences in the linguistic and visual metadiscursive resources of this rather under-researched genre.Postprint (published version

Metadiscourse use when shifting from L1 to EMI lecturing: implications for teacher training

Purpose: Research on EMI (English-Medium Instruction) has addressed the extent to which content lecturers speaking in their L1 perform as well as when they lecture in English. In this study a lecturer who gave the same lecture in his L1 (Catalan) and English was observed to examine if and how transitioning from one language to another impacts his use of metadiscourse. Methodology: Drawing on Adel’s taxonomy (2010), data from four lectures were obtained to compare the quantity and quality of metadiscursive items in the L1 and EMI lectures. Findings: Findings show that the lecturer made a similar use of metadiscourse across languages of instruction, suggesting that EMI does not always affect the use of metadiscourse. A closer analysis of the content of the lectures suggests that metadiscourse seems to be determined more by the complexity of the lecture content rather than by the language of instruction. Value: These results substantiate the need for bespoke training that accommodates to different lecturer profiles in terms of English proficiency, pedagogy and the complexity of the content to be taught.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

EMI lecturers' practices in correcting English: Resources for language teaching?

Research on English-medium instruction (EMI) has pointed to lecturers’ refusal to teach or correct English. This study seeks empirical evidence to investigate the extent to which content lecturers’ assessment practices align with their expressed beliefs regarding language teaching. Drawing on three types of data – a questionnaire, interviews and students’ exams – we aimed at finding and exploring EMI lecturers’ written corrective feedback (WCF) as part of language assessment practices. Findings suggest that while EMI content lecturers repeatedly express their refusal to teach English, their actual teaching practices show evidence of some provision of language-related feedback. These findings are discussed against university language education policy. A gate opener lecturer profile is identified whose corrective feedback creates opportunities for correctly using disciplinary English

Tierversuch, in-vitro Studie und klinische Auswertung eines neuen Devices zur endovaskulären Behandlung breitbasiger Aneurysmen (pCONus®)

Coil occlusion of intracranial aneurysms, both ruptured and unruptured, is safe and efficacious if patient selection and endovascular treatment are carried out adequately (Raymond et al. 1997, Roy et al. 2001, Pierot et al. 2008, Spetzler et al. 2013). A major limitation for this treatment modality is related to the geometry of the target aneurysm. A neck of ≥ 4 mm and a fundus width/neck ratio ≤ 1 mm are unfavorable for simple coiling (Brinjikji et al. 2009). Intraluminal flow diversion has solved this issue for sidewall aneurysms (Fischer et al. 2011). Intraaneurysmal flow disrupter (e.g., WEB, Sequent Medical; LUNA, nFocus/Covidien) are promising but not yet fully established devices for selected bifurcation aneurysms (Klisch et al. 2011, Pierot et al. 2012, Lubicz et al. 2013, Pierot et al. 2013). For WNBAs, the techniques to assist coil occlusion include single or crossing stent deployment and balloon remodeling (Lubicz et al. 2009, Moret et al. 1997), both requiring catheter access to at least one efferent vessel of the bifurcation. This catheterization can sometimes be difficult. Coil assist techniques without efferent vessel access include TriSpan device (Raymond et al. 2001), which is no longer available, and the deployment of self-expanding stents with their distal end inside the aneurysm, the so-called “waffle cone” technique (Horowitz et al. 2006). The stents used for the “waffle cone” technique (e.g., Solitaire AB, Covidien; Enterprise, Codman) are not optimized for this purpose and are far from ideal. pCONus® (phenox) is a dedicated neurovascular device, which was designed to address the functional needs of an extra-intrasaccular neck bridging aneurysm implant to assist the coil occlusion of WNBAs. The present thesis summarizes the in vitro study of the device, its initial use in 9 New Zealand White Rabbits as well as the angiographic and clinical results in the endovascular treatment of 50 intracranial aneurysms. In the clinical use of pCONus® we refer to the initial state of the patient, the angiographic outcome of the treatment session, possible complications and clinical outcome after the treatment. The results of the follow-up, the necessity and, if necessary, subsequent treatments, and in turn, their clinical outcome are presented elsewhere

Engineering students' perceptions of the role of ESP curses in internationalized universities

Recently there has been a trend towards English-medium instruction (EMI) with increasing numbers of programs taught in English (Wächter & Maiworm, 2014). At the same time, there has been a long tradition of ESP courses aiming at preparing students for effective academic and professional communication. In an increasingly internationalized context, it is necessary to reappraise current ESP courses in order to find out the extent to which they are adapted to the ever-changing needs of engineering graduates in a glob- alized world. Within this context, this study looks at the impact of ESP courses on uni- versity students of engineering in two European universities (Spain and Austria). Specifically, our research was based in three campuses: two campuses from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain), UPC-Vilanova (n 1/4 52) and UPC-Barcelona (n 1/4 26), and a third campus at FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences (FHJ) in Austria (n 1/4 17). This research set out to track participants’ perceptions of how ESP courses prepared them for academic communication in general and EMI in particular (N 1/4 95). Data stem mainly from surveys administered both at the start and at the end of an ESP course. Students were asked about their perceived initial level of proficiency, their expectations, and their learning objectives (first survey, T1) as well as their perceived development in the different skills, the degree of fulfilment of their initial learning objectives, and their evaluation of the ESP course as preparation for international academic and professional communication (second survey, T2). These data were complemented with qualitative diary entries from students (n 1/4 7) who reflected on their learning at different stages of their ESP course. Results point to overall satisfaction with ESP courses and greater awareness of the nature of specialized communication and yield deeper insights into students’ strategies and areas where ESP can contribute to better student preparation and empowerment.Postprint (author's final draft

Los servicios sociales frente a la exclusión

Las dificultades económicas de muchas personas ocasionadas por la crisis están suponiendo una sobrecarga para los servicios sociales. Parte de los problemas que se presentan de forma especialmente aguda en estos momentos, sin embargo, derivan de problemas anteriores a la crisis. Dichos problemas tienen que ver con el encaje insatisfactorio de los modernos servicios sociales en el Estado social en España, con el peso del modelo tutelar de la beneficencia y con el colapso del espacio de la incorporación y el acompañamiento bajo el peso de la gestión de una protección económica discrecional. Se proponen vías de salida de la situación, como la diferenciación de las funciones propias de los servicios sociales de las de asistencia social, y la apertura de espacios para el acompañamiento desde la proximidad y la acción comunitaria

Motivations and challenges of an engineering lecturer to implement EMI and innovative methodology

The objective: Explore the drivers for both EMI and teaching innovation.Find out the extent to which they influence each other: does EMI implementation lead to lecturers’ reappraisal of their courses on a level or are innovative lecturers more prone to engage in EMIPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version