TEACHING AND LEARNING IN ENGLISH IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Higher education instruction in English in non-English speaking countries has become a reality in several countries and contexts. The policy towards the adoption of English as language of medium of instruction (EMI) has led to a situation in which students are faced with the need of coping with learning new content in a language different from their mother tongue and teaching staff needs to deliver their courses in English, which is not their first language in many cases. The present review article focuses on the studies concerning EMI in higher education, reporting on didactical strategies employed by the teaching staff and students to cope with the learning context. Studies were acquired via ` Web of Knowledge' building on the following inclusion criteria: they dealt with EMI in higher education, did not have language teaching as main focus and reported didactical strategies utilized by the teaching staffs and/or the students. From 417 articles, only 10 articles met all inclusion criteria. Seventeen addition articles could be identified by consulting the references from the first studies, resulting in 27 studies being reviewed. The literature reviews results in a collection of 38 different didactical strategies employed by teaching staffs and 23 by students. These strategies could be split up into inside or outside the classroom strategies and could also be clustered as follows. Strategies used by staff inside the classroom are categorized as: Language, interaction, checking understanding, and lecture delivery. Strategies used outside the classroom were divided into the clusters: Language, checking understanding, interaction and preparation. Student strategies inside the classroom could be clustered as follows: Language, lecture attendance behavior, checking understanding and interaction. Lastly, strategies outside the classroom were divided into the following clusters: Studying strategies, checking understanding and language.