English-Medium Higher Education in Denmark (EMHED)

Background The research described in this short report is being undertaken by a group of (applied) linguists at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS). As is the case in the other Nordic countries, higher education in Denmark is subject to a continuing process of internationalisation. As a consequence, all Danish universities have progressively shifted to offering more courses and more degrees in English without the lecturing staff concerned being given training to upgrade their competence in English, and without any screening to verify that their language skills are adequate to the task. All institutions are experiencing problems with the quality of English-medium degrees and courses. There are complaints from students about what they perceive as ‘bad’ English, though the precise characteristics of what is inadequate have yet to be explored systematically. In any case, the proficiency issue has many dimensions, relating to activity and discourse type (lecture, informal seminar, feedback to students in speech and in writing), intercultural and crosslinguistic sensitivity, the influence of a variety of mother tongues, and the diversity, norms, and nature of English when functioning as an international language rather than as a British or American language.