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

The Role of Knowledge in Constructing the Quality of Olive Oil in Spain

The sustainability of a large proportion of Spanish olive oil-producing territories depends to a great extent on their capacity to fit into a specific model of food quality. The strategies used in the di erent territories di er with respect to their adherence to the objectifiable conception of quality, based on scientific-technical knowledge, or subjectivating conception of quality, based on tacit and practical knowledge. In this paper, we analyse the route taken by two territories with olive oil protected designation of origin (PDO) status in Spain to construct their quality model, the type of knowledge that has been applied and how knowledge processes a ect the construction of sustainable quality models. This study applies a qualitative methodology based on participative observation and semi-structured interviews with key actors of the territories. The results indicate that processes of production, reproduction and dissemination of knowledge are basic pillars for the construction of sustainable quality projects. The degree of understanding of the objectifiable and subjectivating conception of quality in olive-producing territories and the interaction between them depend on the specific characteristics of the territory, the objectives set in connection to the olive oil quality method, the importance given to the di erent types of knowledge, and its standing on the issue of territorial sustainabilit

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

Reseñas

O. UÑA JUÁREZ y otros, Las dimensiones sociales de la globalización

El libro, pasajero en clase turista

A modo de estrategia se van dibujando los destinos soñados, dando visibilidad a la naturaleza oculta del imaginario escondido. El libro, considerado como espacio donde se piensa, se percibe, se sueña, se vive… es el portador habitual de ideas, el contenedor de hallazgos y de presencias, es el administrador del pensamiento estético y las reflexiones más íntimas. Sirva de guía esta memoria sobre libros auto editados, unidos por hipervínculos de temática y procedencia diversa, que muestran experiencias vividas a través del viaje, primando las emociones. Un viaje tanto geofísico como interior, donde el deseo de habitar un espacio adquiere un protagonismo considerable. La percepción del paisaje, las vivencias y reflexiones quedan latentes en cada uno de los libros referenciados

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

Derge: the heaven of the Tibetan Book

Derge Parkhang; una imprenta de tres plantas, construida en 1729, donde se han xilografiado los principales textos budistas y los grandes hitos de la literatura tibetana, hoy todavía en activo, alberga una importante colección cultural de tesoros tibetanos

Improving Communication Procedures By Means Of Videorecorded Proposals

There is an agreement regarding the importance of communication in the promotion processes of all types of technical or entrepreneurial initiatives. Communication skills have to make it possible to obtain the maximum interaction with the agents involved and facilitate the commitment of these agents to a project. In this context, communicators’ erroneous perception of their own abilities and of how they are transmitting the information is a significant drawback that calls for improvement. Video-recording someone when speaking creates an impact on them given that the possibility of seeing themselves implies a significant change in the learning process. This technique has been applied as part of the teaching activities in the energy engineering master at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and InnoEnergy. In the experience developed, the students follow a first block in which they analyse a technological opportunity and subsequently detail a proposal to develop this opportunity. They prepare an oral presentation to deliver their proposal. This presentation is video-recorded and is the starting point of a second block of the course. In this block, some concepts and guidelines on communication are presented. Finally, a new proposal presentation based on the analysis and improvement of the previous presentation carried out is delivered. We conclude that these procedures can lay the ground for novel guidelines in the area of communication skills for technological innovation projects promotion