Prof-teaching: an English-medium instruction professional development program with a digital, linguistic and pedagogical approach

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to present Prof-teaching, an English-medium instruction (EMI) lecturer training program at the University of Alicante (UA) and to determine if it meets the needs of the institution's current and prospective EMI lecturers. Design/methodology/approach: In this case study, the EMI lecturer professional development program is described along with the surveys and course evaluations carried out to assess its effectiveness. The description focuses on the UA context, the key factors that promoted Prof-teaching, as well as the objectives and components of its three modules. Course participants' teaching experiences, needs and challenges are compared together with their course evaluations, which consisted of quality assurance questionnaires for each module. Findings and originality/value: The findings not only provide evidence of the program's benefits, but also highlight the importance of collaborative efforts among diverse university units to implement EMI training initiatives, as well as to conduct periodic needs analysis and quality evaluations. An interesting result was that experienced EMI lecturers claimed that pedagogical training was more important than developing linguistic competence. It is recommended that programs provide lecturers with support technology and mentoring schemes with previously trained EMI content lecturers who already have experience teaching their subjects in English.