A Case Study in EMI: Students' and Teachers' Perspectives

Abstract

The present study aims to shed some light on how the main stakeholders of EMI (lecturers and students) at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice perceive their role within the recent trend of offering courses in English at university, and how they evaluate their experience of this worldwide phenomenon. Likewise, it investigates their opinion on the differences between teaching and learning in English or in Italian, and whether teaching in English brings about some problems, such as the deterioration of the quality of teaching, the L1 domain loss, and other drawbacks, as suggested in numerous pieces of research and articles. A questionnaire was submitted to students from different degree courses in English, as well as to the students who follow the same parallel courses in Italian. The aim was to identify the reasons why students decided to follow the Italian-Taught course or the parallel English version, to verify their satisfaction and obtain their opinion on various aspects related to their own method of studying and learning. Likewise, teachers were interviewed in order to obtain information on their general point of view on the phenomenon of English-Medium Instruction, their methods of teaching and assessing, their experience in teaching both in Italian and in English, their own perceived level of English as well as the students’ language competencies and problems related to language.