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Many teachers of English aspire to study in anglophone countries, especially at postgraduate level, as a means to support their own professional development. While the overt interest lies in acquiring cutting-edge theories in ELT to improve their classroom practices, a sojourn abroad is also valued as a cultural and linguistic immersion in the English language. Within the vibrant research scene of study abroad, comparatively little is known about the effect of studying abroad on older participants. This study addresses mature teachers as students abroad and focuses on the challenges and changes to their existing professional beliefs triggered by their foreign academic sojourn. The participants are four Japanese teachers of English who attended MA programmes in the UK. The analysis of a corpus of 2046 minutes of in-depth interviews, conducted over a period of 20?months, revealed how some core professional beliefs on English were reformulated, and triggered teacher development.

The rapid increase in English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education has resulted in the need for a greater evidence base documenting EMI in practice spanning a range of settings. Studies of EMI focusing on linguistic issues are beginning to emerge but there are few comparative studies looking at multiple sites, levels and stakeholders. In response to this, the study reported here examined the roles of and conceptualisations of English and other languages in three EMI programmes in Thailand, Austria and the UK. A mixed-methods approach was adopted making use of a student questionnaire (N = 121) and interviews (N = 12) with lecturers and students, supported by documentary analysis and observations. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed diverse roles of English and other languages, various levels of recognition of multilingualism, and a sophisticated range of conceptualisations of language by stakeholders. In particular, English as discipline-specific language use emerged as a key concept, straddling language and content learning and teaching, as well as problematising simplistic divides between language and content. Furthermore, the complex understanding of the diverse roles of languages by participants offers a counter to perspectives of English in EMI as an unambiguous, monolithic entity.

Many teachers of English aspire to study in anglophone countries, especially at postgraduate level, as a means to support their own professional development. While the overt interest lies in acquiring cutting-edge theories in ELT to improve their classroom practices, a sojourn abroad is also valued as a cultural and linguistic immersion in the English language. Within the vibrant research scene of study abroad, comparatively little is known about the effect of studying abroad on older participants. This study addresses mature teachers as students abroad and focuses on the challenges and changes to their existing professional beliefs triggered by their foreign academic sojourn. The participants are four Japanese teachers of English who attended MA programmes in the UK. The analysis of a corpus of 2046 minutes of in-depth interviews, conducted over a period of 20 months, revealed how some core professional beliefs on English were reformulated, and triggered teacher development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education has rapidly increased over the last decade in Europe and Asia. However, this expansion has far outstripped research and many key questions remain unanswered. This study addresses a number of those questions related to roles and conceptualisations of English and other languages in multilingual university settings. Data is presented from an exploratory mixed‐methods (121 questionnaire responses and 12 interviews with lecturers and students), comparative study of higher education institutes in the UK, Austria and Thailand. Findings showed a move from monolingual orientations at management level, mixed responses to multilingualism in ideologies and beliefs, to extensive multilingualism and complexity in practices. Furthermore, unexpected similarities between the UK and Thailand as regards language proficiency and content learning were found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]