JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS: DESIGNING A TEACHER-TRAINING COURSE FOR ENGLISH-MEDIUM INSTRUCTION

This paper describes how the syllabus for a teacher-training course for English-medium instruction (EMI) staff at a Russian university was designed, and evaluates that course’s success based on participant feedback following the pilot delivery.

Although EMI teaching is increasingly widespread, the practices of universities regarding the training of EMI staff vary widely. The training courses which do exist are diverse, and no “gold standard” for EMI training has yet emerged. The literature on EMI makes clear that pedagogy is as important as linguistic proficiency, but the breadth of this literature makes it increasingly challenging to determine the focus of training. Syllabus design for EMI training is a “journey without maps”, requiring an exploratory approach to course development.

This paper considers a range of factors relevant to the design of the syllabus, including the needs of the learners and their previous teaching experience, their language abilities, the target pedagogical competences, and the institutional setting. It surveys the key themes which emerge from the research literature which might affect the design of an EMI training course. It also compares the devised syllabus with its equivalents at other universities.

The paper goes on to discuss the syllabus’s content, its reception by the course participants, and assesses its usefulness based on a survey of those participants following delivery of the pilot course. It offers a practical example of how to apply research findings to syllabus design for teacher training, and identifies what considerations may be important to the staff undertaking that training. It concludes that learners prefer the emphasis to be placed on practical classroom strategies rather than on theoretical or policy-oriented issues.