The challenges of the internationalisation of the curriculum: a pedagogical intervention to promote interculturality and plurilingualism in English-Medium Instruction

PurposeThis study presents the design, implementation and results of a pedagogical intervention aimed at Internationalising the Curriculum and developing Global Competence (GC) in an English-Medium Instruction (EMI) class in a Catalan university. The first goal is to unpack different pedagogical strategies which are considered relevant for the design of an internationalised EMI course. The second goal is to evaluate students' reception and compliance/resistance to the intervention, and to assess the extent to which the proposed framework allowed for the development of interculturality and plurilingualism.DesignThe intervention was designed considering the guidelines of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for Higher Education (OECD 2018). 16 Primary Education teacher-trainees participated in it. The data included a questionnaire, video/audio recordings of the intervention sessions, one focus group with students, one interview with the lecturer, and classroom materials.FindingsFirst, the results suggest that curricular interventions shall be based on the students' attainment of local/global content and of the ability to communicate effectively within/across cultures, through critical metalinguistic reflection. Second, they show that, although students develop GC awareness of and proactively engage with a 'cultural other', after the intervention they reproduce ethnocentric frames concerning language and culture, constructing plurilingualism as an exception.OriginalityThe paper contributes to a better understanding of the specific challenges and curricular dimensions in plurilingual EMI pedagogy which may be addressed for an effective Internationalisation of the Curriculum.