Sharing and promoting disciplinary competences for university teaching in English: voices from the University of Jyväskylä language centre’s TACE programme

Abstract

The internationalisation of universities often means that the language of learning and teaching needs to be changed – at present most commonly to English. Apart from English-speaking countries, then, most European universities offer their degree programmes in a language that is not the first language of either the students or the teachers. This challenging situation is also the reality in Finland and at the University of Jyväskylä. Many Finnish universities have set up supporting infrastructures to deal with the new challenges, particularly in their international master’s programmes. In this article we describe the TACE programme, which has been run by the Language Centre on an annual basis since 2010, and in a modular form since 2005. Starting with the framework, rationale and research-based framework for our TACE programme in intercultural university pedagogy, we then move to describe its content and practices as well as report some ‘voices from the floor’, that is, perceptions and experiences of the interdisciplinary and international group of teaching staff who have participated in the programme. Finally, some concluding remarks, challenges and benefits are presented.