Intensive language programs have increased in popularity in recent years. They are perceived as a means to help current or prospective university students improve their language competencies and academic skills in their medium(s) of instruction in a short amount of time prior to enrolment and/or parallel to their degree courses. However, there has…

This activity report describes a sample unit (Effective Data Presentation) from a communication course prepared as part of an Intellectual Output within the BADGE Project, which was carried out by 12 partner universities from 10 countries during 3 academic years (2019-2022). The article first describes the results of a survey which show that…

English-medium instruction (EMI) is increasingly being introduced not only in universities in northern Europe but also in central and southern countries, such as Italy. However, the competences and concerns of the lecturers involved are not always considered when such developments are introduced, and support or training may not be offered. This…

In the present article, we demonstrate the utility of Open Badge certifications in documenting ESP, EAP and EMI courses. Open Badges are online records of achievement which document field-specific, soft and technical skills. They consist of a visual image and a set of embedded metadata, they are endorsed by the institution which issues them and…

In the process of internationalization of their teaching programmes many universities all over the world are now offering courses in English. This is a typical English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) situation in which both lecturers and students--although they are not native speakers of English--use this language as a common means of communication and…