Talking about teaching in English: Swedish university lecturers' experiences of changing teaching language

Abstract

This study documents the experiences of Swedish university lecturers when they\nchange from teaching in their first language to teaching in English. Eighteen\nlecturers from two Swedish universities took part in a training course for teachers\nwho need to give content courses in English. As part of the course the\nparticipants gave mini-lectures in their first language in a subject area that they\nusually teach. The following week, the lecturers gave the same lectures again, this\ntime in English. The pairs of lectures were videoed and commented on by the\nlecturers themselves and the whole course cohort in an online discussion forum\n(an input of approximately 60 000 words). In addition, twelve of the lecturers\nwere interviewed about their experiences of changing language in this way (total\nof 4 hours of recorded material). The paper presents a qualitative analysis of the\nthoughts and experiences expressed by the lecturers in their online discussions\nand in the interviews concerning the process of changing the language of\ninstruction to English. These results are presented as nine themes. Nine\nrecommendations for teachers changing to teaching in English are also\npresented. The findings replicate those of earlier studies with one notable\nexception: the lecturers in this study were acutely aware of their limitations when\nteaching in English. It is suggested that this may be due to the lecturers� relative\ninexperience of English-medium instruction.

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