EMI at the University of Padova: an ecology of learning and teaching

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the role of University Language Centres in providing training for lecturers involved in English-medium instruction (EMI) within the wider perspective of internationalisation policies. Taking an ecology of learning/teaching approach, it will reflect on how such support is necessarily intertwined with the relationships between the various actors in the process, along with the rapidly evolving dynamics of the use of English as an Academic Lingua Franca in higher educational contexts. I will begin by providing a brief overview of internationalisation policies at the University of Padova together with the roots and the present development of EMI. I will go on to discuss the explicit and implicit ties between the work of the Language Centre at the University of Padova and the latter’s drive to boost internationalization, suggesting that recent and ongoing changes have important implications for all the activities of the Centre and indeed its whole ‘raison d’être’. The following sections of the chapter will be of a more practical, illustrative nature, outlining the various steps in the introduction of EMI lecturer support in Padova, with specific reference to the LEAP (Learning English for Academic Purposes) project, which was launched in 2013; it will be seen that the combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches to EMI support have provided a valuable framework in drawing up concrete support proposals. The chapter will conclude with some considerations on the future directions of Language Centre action, which, as I will argue, need to be backed up by ongoing research into the field of EMI.