Catalan universities are committed to internationalization, as evidenced by the publication of their internationalization policy documents. Taking curricular internationalization as one of the university internationalization dimensions (Wätcher, 2008), it is observable that Catalan universities have implemented curricular internationalization processes, ranging from the selection of competences dealing with foreign language command in the syllabi, to the implementation of these competences thro...
Catalan universities are committed to internationalization, as evidenced by the publication of their internationalization policy documents. Taking curricular internationalization as one of the university internationalization dimensions (Wätcher, 2008), it is observable that Catalan universities have implemented curricular internationalization processes, ranging from the selection of competences dealing with foreign language command in the syllabi, to the implementation of these competences through subjects taught through the medium of English. Building on previous research (Mancho-Barés 2012), this paper examines tensions but also good practices within the curriculum internationalization of seven public Catalan universities. Our data come from the public webpages of the degrees and the subjects offered in the last academic year (2011-12). A quantitative analysis is carried out in order to identify competences in foreign language (FL) command from ten degrees in seven universities; and to classify subjects taught through the FL, according to Dalton-Puffer et al.’s (2010) definition of EMI and ICL/CLIL
Preliminary results show that 45% of the degrees includeS the FL competence in the syllabus and wordS it in terms of English communicative competence or practice of specialised discourse. Moreover, 39% of the degrees examined include subjects which have English as the language of tuition. However, only 5.4% of these subjects qualify as ICL/CLIL subjects, as the course objectives and content explicitly include the language component of ICL/CLIL. With these low numbers, little can be done to help students attain FL competence. Consequently, universities should try to raise these numbers, for example by fostering onsite teacher training programs.
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