Abstract:

The internationalization process in higher education institutions (HEIs) is an increasingly desirable goal in a multicultural and globalized world. It aims not only to develop academic international cooperation relations and scientific research with partner universities, but also to take actions regarding the internationalization at home. The integration of the international dimension is done in various ways: in terms of curricular review, of the research, as well as of internationalizing the student experience and developing the international profiles of academic and non-academic staff. Recent debates have sought to make clear that in effect, the latter are professional employees who contribute very significantly to the success of higher education institutions (HEIs), by providing skills, institutional knowledge and essential resources. By working alongside faculty and administration in realizing the institutional mission of internationalization, they highly influence the foreign students’ experience and, indeed, can contribute to their success through support and operational services. This paper aims to show insight into the particular case of an English language course for non-academic staff, as part of a larger project to develop the international dimension of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. The design of the course had to take into account both the development of intercultural and language competence, while also advocating for the motivation of going through this process. The non-academic staff who attended this course showed improved fluency and grammatical accuracy of communication in English at an intermediate level, oriented towards the development of international communication skills.

Keywords:

English course, non-academic staff, internationalization, language competence.