Higher Education Newsletter
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21/01/2002
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Number 13
LANGUAGE POLICIES AT THE UNIVERSITY

The creation of new spaces of Higher Education and the promotion of student mobility have forced universities to foster language policies that ensure communication between teachers and students, thus introducing a new, multilingual classroom reality. The University's response to the arrival of new students in classes will depend on the geopolitical environment in which it interacts, the strength of the official language of the institution and the institution's capacity for manoeuvre.

The traditional response of universities is to require a good knowledge of the language in which the classes are given. This response, which until recently was very generalized, is now still applied in institutions of great international prestige with a high demand of foreign students, which teach in languages that are strategically well-positioned, particularly English.

The European Commission has fostered activities for multilingual and cultural diversity through the creation of the Socrates/Lingua programme for the promotion of language teaching and learning in Europe (http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education/languages/actions/lingua2.html), and for the promotion and safeguarding of regional and minority languages and cultures (http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education/langmin.html).

The Commission has supported one of the better examples of this policy, which is the American universities, which for admission require a level of TOEFL that demonstrates a perfect mastery of the English language. (http://www.toefl.org). Examples are Columbia University (http://www.ce.columbia.edu/info/intl-req.cfm) or the Wagner School of the New York University (http://www.nyu.edu/wagner/admissions1f.html).

An appropriate response to the new times is to guarantee the reinforcement of the language of the institution by requiring students to have, a priori, a basic knowledge of it. The strategy consists in making the language restrictions flexible I order to gain competitiveness in a global environment and it is being adopted mainly in Europe, where the policies to promote student mobility, which stem from the European Commission, require special attention to the multilingual reality.

Many Anglo-Saxon universities are already even adopting measures, such as those of Bath University (http://www.bath.ac.uk/international-office/handbook/English.htm), in response to the creation of a European Higher Education Space, but also to the explicit will to gain international projection and to acquire prestige.

The Socrates/Erasmus programme of the European Commission aimed at fostering student mobility has adopted a policy aimed at breaking language barriers in the European Higher Education Space. The creation of Socrates/Erasmus gives a new approach to the associated universities, not only as transmitters of knowledge but as places where the foreign students can learn a language. (http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education/erasmus/students_en.html). In addition, the Socrates/Erasmus programme facilitates the training of students by funding intensive language courses (http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education/ilpc.html).

As a general rule, the student has the opportunity to attend the subjects either in English or in the official language of the institution, but with the guarantee of always receiving additional language support.

Countries with two or more official languages show very heterogeneous language policies. In the Université du Québec à Montreal, Canada, the will to reinforce the French language has led to programmes for foreign students that include specific attention to language resources (http://www.uqam.ca/international/international.htm). However, in Switzerland each university maintains its official language according to the area to which it belongs. Webs are even translated into English but not into the other official languages. The Universität Zurich can be consulted in German (http://www.unizh.ch), the Université de Genève in French (http://www.unige.ch), and the Universitá della Svizzera Italiana in Italian (http://www.unisi.ch), all of them with little attention to the multilingual situation.

In Flanders, Belgium, the programmes for foreign students are distributed in English and include the possibility of attending courses in Dutch if the students have an intermediate knowledge of the language. We advise you to consult the admission criteria of Limburgs Universitair Centrum of Universiteit Limburg (http://www.luc.ac.be/engels/). The efforts of the institutions of Catalonia, Spain, to preserve the presence of the Catalan (one of the four official languages in the Spanish State, along with Spanish, Basque and Galician) in Higher Education has resulted in student induction programmes aimed at promoting knowledge of the Catalan language for students from outside Catalonia. This is the case of the Intercat program, an online Catalan course (http://www.intercat.com) sponsored by the Generalitat (government) of Catalonia and available on the web sites of all Catalan universities.

Other examples of adaptation to the multilingual situation respond to the need to gain a leading role in the world through a policy of approximation to the English-speaking world. Many universities following this strategy have adapted their curricula to English in order to make them more attractive to an international public. The Technological Institute of Higher Education of Monterrey, Mexico, has introduce a policy of internationalisation of the institution consisting in offering degree courses in English http://www.sistema.itesm.mx/va/Planes2002/Internacionales.htm

In opposition, there are language policies that indeed aim to facilitate the learning of the official language in spite of the strategic importance of English. Since the mid-eighties the University of Tokyo, Japan, has been developing actions to break the language barriers and to attract foreign students through learning of Japanese. The International Centre distributes intensive courses in Japanese and offers counselling in English, Korean and Chinese (http://www.ic.u-tokyo.ac.jp/index-e.html).

AGENDA DE EDUCACIÓN SUPERIOR

©The Higher Education Newsletter is made by the Conference of Spanish University Rectors and the UNESCO Chair of Higher Education Management at the Technical University of Catalonia, in cooperation with GUNI.