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Introduction
Ute Smit is Professor of English Linguistics at the Department of English Studies, University of Vienna. Ute does research on English in and around education from an applied linguistic and sociolinguistic point of view.. Her publications deal with CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), EMEMUS (English Medium Education in Multilingual University Settings), ELF (English as a lingua franca). She is presently the chair of the ICLHE Association (www.iclhe.org).
Additional affiliations
April 1993 - present
Publications
Publications (78)
Complementing the rich literature on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) classroom discourse, this study is one of the first to focus on teachers and students topicalizing language in technical education at upper secondary level. By using an extended conceptualization of the “language-related episode” (LRE) to incorporate all interactio...
Reflecting the global push for internationalisation, higher education institutions (HEIs) have experienced a surge in English-medium education in multilingual university settings (EMEMUS). Of the many topics and angles pursued in the equally impressive research landscape, multilingualism has so far received comparatively less attention, especially...
Reflecting the global push for internationalisation, higher education institutions (HEIs) have experienced a surge in English-medium education in multilingual university settings (EMEMUS). Of the many topics and angles pursued in the equally vast research landscape, multilingualism has so far received comparatively less attention, especially when a...
This paper focuses on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), an educational approach where a foreign language is used to teach non-language subjects. More specifically, this contribution presents new insights into an under-researched area, namely the potential of CLIL in fostering the learning and use of subject-specific target language v...
This chapter examines English-medium education (EME) in Austria, drawing on extant research to identify general trends, highlight individual institutions exemplifying these trends, and make recommendations for further research. Like many European countries, Austria has experienced a surge in EME over the last three decades, which has nevertheless n...
Apart from linguistic diversity and multilingualism, empirical research into diversity is only in its beginnings in the Austrian educational context. CLIL research, on the other hand, is well-established but has not tended to focus on pedagogical practices. This study explores teachers’ and students’ self-reported experiences in Austrian CLIL class...
The introduction of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) has changed higher education enormously in many European countries. This development is increasingly encapsulated under the term Englishization, that is, the increasing dispersion of English as a means of communication in non-Anglophone contexts. Englishization is not undisputed: legal ch...
The introduction of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) has changed higher education enormously in many European countries. This development is increasingly encapsulated under the term Englishization , that is, the increasing dispersion of English as a means of communication in non-Anglophone contexts. Englishization is not undisputed: legal c...
The increasing use of English as a medium of education (EME) in higher education has attracted an impressive amount of applied linguistic research, reflecting the pivotal role language plays in teaching and learning processes. This, however, stands in sharp contrast to the equally prolific body of research into the internationalisation of higher ed...
Connected to the growing internationalisation of higher education in the world, the English language is increasingly being used as medium of teaching and learning, thereby contributing to the roles of English for transnational mobility, career development, access to new information and research, and the facilitation of global communication. While t...
The rise of English-medium education has led to considerable academic interest in communicative practices in multilingual university settings. However, there is still little research into disciplinary knowledge construction in higher education contexts where English is the academic lingua franca. To address this gap, we embrace the central role of...
English in the German-Speaking World - edited by Raymond Hickey December 2019
The overall aim of this chapter is to illustrate how English-Medium Education in Multilingual University Settings (EMEMUS) is a dynamic, complex and highly situated phenomenon which comes in different shapes and forms. To explore such diversity, the first part of the chapter offers a selection of case studies from higher education institutions (HEI...
With the use of the ROAD-MAPPING framework, this chapter examines managerial and policy concerns in English-medium Education in Multilingual University Settings (EMEMUS). In order to do this, three cases are examined in detail focusing on three different hierarchical levels—namely institutional (at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid), national (...
This chapter illustrates the research potential of the ROAD-MAPPING framework as it argues for possibilities of using the framework for investigations into English-medium Education in Multilingual University Settings (EMEMUS). By way of exemplification, two research focal points are foregrounded: participant expectations and evaluations of relevant...
This short chapter introduces the topic discussed in the book: the use of English for educational purposes in the internationalised university. Against the backdrop of the unprecedented rise of this phenomenon, paralleled by similarly increasing research activities, we argue for our conceptualisation of English-Medium Education in Multilingual Univ...
This chapter offers an updated account of ROAD-MAPPING, our conceptual framework developed to examine English-Medium Education in Multilingual University Settings (EMEMUS) (originally introduced in Dafouz and Smit (Towards a dynamic conceptual framework for English-medium education in multilingual university settings. Applied Linguistics, 37(3), 39...
The concluding chapter picks up on the overarching purpose of the book, namely to offer an understanding of the intricacies, limitations and opportunities of English-Medium Education in Multilingual University Settings (EMEMUS). It emphasises the need for ROAD-MAPPING, a theoretically grounded conceptual framework that allows for in-depth comprehen...
"This is timely and important conceptual work on the use of English for teaching and learning in multilingual higher education contexts. The theoretical and heuristic strength of the ROAD-MAPPING framework ensures methodological rigour and justifiable comparison across different contexts. Higher education managers, administrators and researchers wi...
Content and language integrated learning (CLIL), an educational approach using a foreign language to teach non-language subjects, has been consistently gaining in popularity. Despite an increasing research base suggesting its benefits for general language proficiency, the contribution made to learning and using subject-specific target language elem...
While the label ‘English-medium instruction’ seems to stand for a monolingual reality, it is common knowledge that the unabated popularity of EMI rests on the unwavering endeavour of higher educational institutions to attract international students in ever increasing numbers. As such student cohorts come with culturally and linguistically diverse b...
English as a foreign language is no longer the sole object of specialized language classes, but increasingly a medium of university‐level instruction in a range of content areas. This leads to a complex interaction between new academic content and the means of expressing this expertise through appropriate disciplinary language uses. Conceptually, t...
Based on the first national study of statutory CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learn-ing) lessons at Austrian technical colleges, this contribution describes the classroom practices and pedagogical implications of four videotaped case studies from four IT teachers and some of their classes. Particular emphasis has been placed on didactic, int...
While extant research on CLIL suggests positive impacts on lexical proficiency and on spoken language, the crucial question of the effect of CLIL on advanced learners, both in terms of language proficiency and content knowledge, has received less attention. Of particular interest here is the nexus between these in the area of spoken subject-specifi...
Over the last twenty years, English-medium education in tertiary settings has turned into a global reality, with higher education institutions (HEIs) across the world aiming to become increasingly international. Yet this apparently uniform move towards English-medium instruction comes in such a variety of highly diverse local realisations that, whe...
Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a form of education that combines language and content learning objectives, a shared concern with other models of bilingual education. While CLIL research has often addressed learning outcomes, this volume focuses on how integration can be conceptualised and investigated. Using different theoretica...
At a time of increasing internationalization in tertiary education, English-Medium Education in Multilingual University Settings (EMEMUS) has become a common practice. While there is already ample research describing this phenomenon at a local level (Smit and Dafouz 2012a), the theoretical side needs to be elaborated. This article thus aims to deve...
Zum Thema CLIL im tertiären Sektor ist es zunächst sinnvoll, sich einige Herausstellungsmerkmale tertiärer Bildung ins Gedächtnis zu rufen (Smit/Dafouz 2012: 2–3). Aus chronologischer Sicht fällt diese letzte Stufe formaler (Aus)bildung, außerhalb der Schulpflicht, und hat daher mit volljährigen und selbstbestimmten Lernenden zu tun, die eine hohe...
At a time of increasing internationalization in tertiary education, English-Medium Education in Multilingual University Settings
(EMEMUS) has become a common practice. While there is already ample research describing this phenomenon at a local level (Smit
and Dafouz 2012a), the theoretical side needs to be elaborated. This article thus aims to deve...
This paper presents a response to “A. Bruton. 2013. CLIL: Some of the reasons why … and why not. System 41 (2013): 587–597” and engages with the claims made in this contribution. We challenge a series of assumptions made about CLIL in Bruton (2013), i.e. that it is discriminatory, that it replaces foreign language instruction and that it does (or s...
While Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has received a considerable amount of research interest lately, its increasing popularity as an approach to teaching content subjects in a foreign language requires concerted investigation that reflects and recognises its fundamentally contextualised nature. In this contribution, we sketch vario...
This contribution focuses on classroom discourse, and student evaluations thereof, in a specific tertiary EMT (English-medium teaching) setting. This is done by drawing on a rich, triangulated and longitudinal data base, comprising classroom interactional and ethnographic data that cover the whole duration of an international, four-semester English...
CLIL is one of the most dynamic pedagogic trends in language teaching in Europe and yet, the enthusiasm with which this innovation is implemented by stakeholders and “made a success” is not fully understood. In this paper we argue for an investigation of CLIL implementation as a form of extended language policy (Spolsky 2004), which relates languag...
This contribution draws on the notion of English as a lingua franca, especially as discussed in James
(2006) and Smit (2010), to conceptualise English-medium tertiary education in settings where English
functions as additional language and where tertiary education has a history of being undertaken in
other, usually national languages. After briefly...
Based on a longitudinal study of an international educational programme in English as the participants' lingua franca, this chapter argues for 'integrative explaining' as a new construct that offers direct access to analysing content and language integrated learning at the micro-level. A detailed discourse-pragmatic analysis of twelve lessons sprea...
Recent debates on English varieties have focused on the apparent contrast of Global English on the one hand and World Englishes on the other, where the former reflects the status of English as the main global means of communication, while the latter describes the multitude of diverse varieties of English presently used in various parts of the world...
One of the effects of the growing importance of global English in professional contexts has been the rise of ESP teaching at all levels. Despite the concurrently increasing demand for ESP teachers, pre-service teacher education programmes in Europe have so far largely neglected this important area. In order to address the professional needs of futu...
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In order to better prepare future engineers for the international nature of their occupation in a globalized industry, colleges of engineering, arts and crafts in Austria have been employing CLIL in engineering subjects. The present study seeks to unveil some of the...
CLIL and Immersion Classrooms: Applied Linguistic Perspectives (www.ichm.org/clil/) is one of a number of research networks (ReNs) established under the auspices of AILA. It was founded after the first CLIL Symposium, held in Vienna in July 2005. The network connects applied linguists who focus their research interests on educational settings which...
In the last issue, in accordance with InJAL's new relationship with AILA, the idea and rationale of AILA Research Networks was explained in general terms. In this issue and the next, individual co-ordinators present their ReNs and the particular activities they are engaged in.
Building on the motivation in language learning discussion of recent years (e.g., Gardner 1985; Dornyei 1994; Gardner et al. 1997), long-term empirical research investigating motivation in pronunciation learning has been undertaken at the English Department, Vienna University (e.g., Dalton et al. 1997; Smit and Dalton 1997, 2000). In its final stag...
Pronunciation learning has a special status in foreign language learning: firstly, it seems to take place relatively independently and, secondly, it touches upon the learner's identity most immediately. With the aim to uncover some of the reasons for pronunciation learning, a series of tests was undertaken with advanced EFL pronunciation learners o...
In the context of pronunciation teaching, the relevance of a standard native accent as teaching model and norm needs to be reconsidered in view of the learners’ attainment as well as their wishes and expectations. In order to test attitudes to native and non-native varieties of English in Austria, a language attitude study was undertaken with 132 u...
After 30 years of seemingly immutable, top-down language policy in education in South Africa, the early 1990’s and the dismantling of apartheid have brought considerable momentum into the language discussion. Since the first democratic and general elections in 1994, this has led to radically new suggestions and policy formulations for the ca. 40 mi...
In die meeste taalhoudingstudies, waar die klassieke ‘matched-guise’-tegniek gebruik word, word daar nie van die proefpersone verwag dat hulle die variëteite wat hulle moet evalueer, ook nog moet identifiseer nie. Omdat hierdie aanname gebaseer is op tradisionele navorsingsbegrippe, moet toekomstige navorsers die implementering daarvan heroorweeg w...
The socio-political changes that have taken place in South Africa since 1990 have had their effects on basically all spheres of social life, including the status and roles of the individual languages. While English, as the main language of wider communication, has been at the centre of attention and linguistic investigation, the sociolinguistic and...
Teen die agtergrond van Smitherman (2000:314) se mening dat daar aantoonbare ooreenkomste in die sosio-politieke aard van die taaldebat in Amerika en Suid-Afrika bestaan, is die doel met hierdie artikel om spesifiek na te gaan tot watter mate die uitspraak waar is ten opsigte van die manier waarop die etnolinguistiese varieteite van Engels ontwikke...
Projects
Projects (8)
This project aims to investigate the roles and functions of language(s) in classical music education at internationalised higher education institutions (HEIs) in Austria.
I am main proposer and Action Chair candidate for this project, which will start October 2022.
The main aim and objective of the Action is to create a shared European research agenda that will help optimize CLIL for bi/multilingual disciplinary literacies. This research agenda will be used to organise
existing research and conduct new research, whose findings will be transformed into recommendations for educational practice in CLIL.
For more info see https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA21114/
Produce a co-authored book - "ROAD-MAPPINT English Medium Education in the Interntionalised University" (publisehd with palgrave macmillan, 2020)
