Abstract:

Introducing English as a teaching-learning language at the Master’s Degree in the Spanish University system is a challenging and pending task. The main goals are the students get familiar with the language and get strong written and oral communication skills in English, as well as to attract abroad students. Indeed, nowadays, many economic and social activities are becoming increasingly international, and the University should not avoid this trend. Besides, students must be strongly proficient in English and get use to interact and work with other people in a multilingual and multicultural context. Otherwise, they ought to be able to enroll in a Doctoral program in any international University, and handle useful bibliography, mainly in English. Nevertheless, this represents a significant effort for both professors and students, which have to use a non-native language. In the subject “Master’s Dissertation”, students perform a research work, usually bibliographic, present a written report and expose it orally. Therefore, it is an excellent tool to recognize and get familiar with the main bibliographic sources (mainly in English and Spanish), and to practice the ability of searching, reading and selecting the useful information, as well as to discard the less relevant one. Moreover, they have to synthesize, present and discuss the information, both in a written and oral way. Consequently, it is an excellent opportunity to work on the ability to get, manage and transmit scientific information, which would be extremely useful in their future professional career. Introducing English as a teaching-learning language in this subject would be an excellent way to improve English written and spoken communication skills in a scientific context.

This work explains the experience of professors and students on the use of English to develop the Master’s Dissertation tasks, the report and the oral exposition, regardless of their proficiency. According to the student’s opinion, the exercise was a good chance to practice English. The exposition of the oral speech required an extra-effort, but not excessively for its preparation or the editing of the report, as they are somewhat used to handle written documents. By the same way, the correction of the oral speech was the most difficult task for professors. Both groups positively value the introduction of English as learning-teaching language and claim to enlarge it to other subjects.

Keywords:

English, Master, Master’s Dissertation, Students, University.