The present paper stems from an awareness that English has become the most widely used means of intercultural communication on a global scale. Therefore, intercultural communication is more likely to occur through English used as a lingua franca than in any other language used as a lingua franca. English has transcended boundaries and has allowed…

Linguistic diversity is growing in Higher Education, driven by factors like internationalization and digitalization. This trend necessitates a reevaluation of language practices within academic communities. Language Centres play a crucial role in modelling effective practices and reshaping these practices to address the multilingual needs of…

The report presents the results of an experimentation of an intercomprehension (IC) workshop, delivered in blended mode for Italian and Brazilian PhD students, and activated at the Language Center of the University of Ferrara during the academic year 2021-22. The general objective was for participants to learn a methodology that enables…

This article is my answer to the question: What is your vision of university language centres in the 21st century? I argue that language centres can best establish themselves as beacons of good practice by embracing, exploring and further developing the concept of plurilingualism, promoting the autonomy of their students, and constructively…

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…

It is undeniable that English has become the worldwide lingua franca for the academic world. Many countries have therefore opted for Higher Education programmes fully in English, of which the Netherlands is the frontrunner. Language policies that include drawing on students plurilingual repertoires could offer the opportunity to employ several…

In the rapidly evolving educational landscape, this study investigates the effectiveness of hybrid teaching methods in enhancing oral communication skills in Indonesian higher education, marking a critical exploration at the intersection of digital and traditional pedagogies. Anchored in a qualitative research methodology, it seeks to unpack the…

The refugee is the person who has fled his or her country for reasons of war, racial discrimination, vengeance, sectarian massacres or other reasons. Many refugees have left everything behind them to reach a society that is completely different from their own, creating many challenges. Perhaps the most important of these challenges is to learn the…

Since 2012 an interdisciplinary and culturally heterogeneous team composed of more than 30 people has been engaged in the complex process of conceiving, designing and validating an online placement test with formative orientation called SELF (Système d'Evaluation en Langues à visée Formative), developed and already deployed in six different…

An increasingly interconnected world requires people to become versatile communicators in a variety of different settings. Language centers have a critical role to play in this process by offering language and culture training in multiple languages to students, professionals and the wider community alike. They may do so from the perspective of…

Educational issues are a regular feature in mainstream media, and the ways in which particular issues are represented can influence public perceptions of the various discipline areas and, in turn, policy decisions that affect them. While the research literature includes media coverage analyses of a wide range of educational disciplines and…

This report describes the opportunities, challenges and limits of evidence-based quality improvement in university language teaching. Using "treffpunkt sprachen"--Centre for Language, Plurilingualism and Didactics at the University of Graz as an example, it provides a brief explanation of the centre and then presents the prioritization…

The University of Florence's Language Center (CLA) and the Florence seat of an American university renowned for its language programs, Middlebury College, twice intertwined their English and Italian B2/C1 foreign language courses to produce an English/Italian reciprocal learning space. In addition to disparate organizational constructs, the two…

In this paper, we explore how language centres can and need to seize the initiative in matters of internationalisation, language policy and supporting a multilingual and multicultural institutional environment. We identify and explore a number of challenges and opportunities, using the situation in the United Kingdom as our example, demonstrating…

Increasingly, professionally-oriented tertiary institutions are concerned with equipping their students with the English language skills needed in today's global professional world. The recently extended 2018 Common European Framework (CEFR) provides useful guidance to help institutions develop curricula to achieve this goal. This paper describes…