{"id":149812,"date":"2023-04-17T08:03:25","date_gmt":"2023-04-17T06:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/universitetets-sprogkrav-er-udtryk-for-nationalistisk-symbolpolitik\/"},"modified":"2023-04-17T10:55:09","modified_gmt":"2023-04-17T08:55:09","slug":"the-ucph-language-requirements-are-just-nationalist-gesture-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/the-ucph-language-requirements-are-just-nationalist-gesture-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"The UCPH language requirements are just nationalist gesture politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since 2021, new researchers have been required to learn Danish<\/a> so that they can teach in the language after three to six years of employment. This means that the academics we employ at the University of Copenhagen have to spend a lot of time learning Danish instead of what we hired them to do: To teach and do research.<\/p>\n

The University Post has just described how big a burden<\/a> it can be for non-Danish speaking researchers to be employed at UCPH and then suddenly have to learn Danish at a high level within a short period of time. They are reduced to language novices, face humiliating experiences, and get poorer student evaluations.<\/p>\n

READ ALSO:<\/strong> Academics lose status when they teach Danish with an accent<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Missing out on important insights<\/h3>\n

UCPH has the privilege of being able to employ talented world-class researchers. It is an opportunity to increase the diversity of teaching and to strengthen the students\u2019 skillset, who can be instructed by teachers from multiple backgrounds. This is the gift that we will lose when we move our academic instructors back to the school bench and away from the students in the auditorium.<\/p>\n

\n

OPINION ON THE UNIVERSITY POST<\/p>\n

This is a featured comment\/opinion piece.\u00a0 It expresses the author\u2019s own opinion.<\/p>\n

We encourage everyone to read the whole piece before commenting on social media, so that we only get constructive contributions.<\/p>\n

Disagreement is good, but remember to uphold a civil and respectful tone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It is not just the teaching that would be better, however, if we gave international researchers more time for academic work. The research would also be more sophisticated. When different researchers from different backgrounds meet, the research take on a different nuance, with insights that a group of purely Danish researchers with their own backgrounds would never have achieved.<\/p>\n

Organisations with a high level of diversity have a proven ability to perform better<\/a> financially. We have to assume that something similar applies to academic performance.<\/p>\n

At a time when universities are under political and financial pressure, we need to use the resources where they benefit the most. In other words, where they strengthen the university, improve the teaching and improve the research. If that is not the university’s most important task, I do not know what it is.<\/p>\n

A suspicious political shift<\/h3>\n

Of course, a Danish university also has to accept that many students find it difficult to be taught in English at the beginning of their study programmes. It may make sense here to teach new students in Danish until they have become more confident in academic English.<\/p>\n

But this is not an argument for all academic teaching staff to have to be able to teach in Danish. There are a lot of researchers who do not teach first-year students, but who, for example, only teach at the master’s level or in elective subjects. Why should they all fall under the same rigid language requirements?<\/p>\n

There are a lot of benefits to be had from making one, simple, change<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As is also evident from the aforementioned article, the political focus changed in the 2010’s, and there was a feeling that Danish should not lose its status as a language at the universities. In 2008, the guiding principle for the UCPH language policy was parallel language use between Danish and English \u2013 but since then there has been a political shift.<\/p>\n

And I believe it is a result of the [right wing, ed.] Danish People’s Party’s progress in parliament during the same period. Because the language policy also expresses a nationalist gesture politics that excludes foreign researchers and harms the international research environment at UCPH.<\/p>\n

Reintroduce the parallel language policy<\/h3>\n

So dear management: Should we not take another look at language policy? Let us reintroduce the 2008 parallel language policy between Danish and English. We can then accommodate the students who still need to get used to academic English, by possibly retaining the Danish language requirement for staff who teach first-year students.<\/p>\n

But for all the others, we can improve diversity by re-introducing an inclusive language policy that takes care of our international researchers. Let us improve the teaching, improve the research, and give ourselves a better international profile. There are a lot of benefits to be had from making one simple change.<\/p>\n

READ MANAGEMENT’S RESPONSE HERE:<\/strong> We do, actually, have a language policy at UCPH that is quite international<\/a><\/em>
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dropping the Danish-language teaching requirement for international researchers should be an open-and-shut case. 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requirements","text":"Dropping the Danish-language teaching requirement for international researchers should be an open-and-shut case. As this is not happening, you may realize that this is all about gesture politics.","use_post_excerpt":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>Since 2021, new researchers have been<a href=\"https:\/\/cip.ku.dk\/english\/about_cip\/about_parallel_language_use\/UPCH_Language_policy_2021_web.pdf\"> required to learn Danish<\/a> so that they can teach in the language after three to six years of employment. This means that the academics we employ at the University of Copenhagen have to spend a lot of time learning Danish instead of what we hired them to do: To teach and do research.<\/p>\n<p>The University Post has just described how <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/academics-lose-status-when-they-teach-with-an-accent\/\">big a burden<\/a> it can be for non-Danish speaking researchers to be employed at UCPH and then suddenly have to learn Danish at a high level within a short period of time. They are reduced to language novices, face humiliating experiences, and get poorer student evaluations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ ALSO:<\/strong> <em><a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/academics-lose-status-when-they-teach-with-an-accent\/\">Academics lose status when they teach Danish with an accent<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Missing out on important insights<\/h3>\n<p>UCPH has the privilege of being able to employ talented world-class researchers. It is an opportunity to increase the diversity of teaching and to strengthen the students\u2019 skillset, who can be instructed by teachers from multiple backgrounds. This is the gift that we will lose when we move our academic instructors back to the school bench and away from the students in the auditorium.<\/p>\n<div class=\"factbox\">\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">OPINION ON THE UNIVERSITY POST<\/p>\n<p>This is a featured comment\/opinion piece.\u00a0 It expresses the author\u2019s own opinion.<\/p>\n<p>We encourage everyone to read the whole piece before commenting on social media, so that we only get constructive contributions.<\/p>\n<p>Disagreement is good, but remember to uphold a civil and respectful tone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>It is not just the teaching that would be better, however, if we gave international researchers more time for academic work. The research would also be more sophisticated. When different researchers from different backgrounds meet, the research take on a different nuance, with insights that a group of purely Danish researchers with their own backgrounds would never have achieved.<\/p>\n<p>Organisations with a high level of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mckinsey.com\/featured-insights\/diversity-and-inclusion\/diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters\">diversity have a proven ability to perform better<\/a> financially. We have to assume that something similar applies to academic performance.<\/p>\n<p>At a time when universities are under political and financial pressure, we need to use the resources where they benefit the most. In other words, where they strengthen the university, improve the teaching and improve the research. If that is not the university’s most important task, I do not know what it is.<\/p>\n<h3>A suspicious political shift<\/h3>\n<p>Of course, a Danish university also has to accept that many students find it difficult to be taught in English at the beginning of their study programmes. It may make sense here to teach new students in Danish until they have become more confident in academic English.<\/p>\n<p>But this is not an argument for all academic teaching staff to have to be able to teach in Danish. There are a lot of researchers who do not teach first-year students, but who, for example, only teach at the master’s level or in elective subjects. Why should they all fall under the same rigid language requirements?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There are a lot of benefits to be had from making one, simple, change<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As is also evident from the aforementioned article, the political focus changed in the 2010’s, and there was a feeling that Danish should not lose its status as a language at the universities. In 2008, the guiding principle for the UCPH language policy was parallel language use between Danish and English \u2013 but since then there has been a political shift.<\/p>\n<p>And I believe it is a result of the [right wing, ed.] Danish People’s Party’s progress in parliament during the same period. Because the language policy also expresses a nationalist gesture politics that excludes foreign researchers and harms the international research environment at UCPH.<\/p>\n<h3>Reintroduce the parallel language policy<\/h3>\n<p>So dear management: Should we not take another look at language policy? Let us reintroduce the 2008 parallel language policy between Danish and English. We can then accommodate the students who still need to get used to academic English, by possibly retaining the Danish language requirement for staff who teach first-year students.<\/p>\n<p>But for all the others, we can improve diversity by re-introducing an inclusive language policy that takes care of our international researchers. Let us improve the teaching, improve the research, and give ourselves a better international profile. There are a lot of benefits to be had from making one simple change.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MANAGEMENT’S RESPONSE HERE:<\/strong> <em><a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/we-do-actually-have-a-language-policy-at-ucph-that-is-quite-international\/\">We do, actually, have a language policy at UCPH that is quite international<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Newsletter","lang_select":"en","identifier":"Newsletter","headline":"Get an email with our top stories","button_text":"Sign up here","class":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":true,"references":[{"reference":{"ID":149377,"post_author":"5","post_date":"2023-04-11 07:00:28","post_date_gmt":"2023-04-11 05:00:28","post_content":"<span class=\"dropcap\">\u00bbD<\/span>enmark is one of the world's most intolerant language communities,\u00ab the linguist Jens Normann J\u00f8rgensen once said. The late Prince Henrik, husband of the present Danish Queen Margrethe, knew it, as he was ridiculed throughout his life for his French accent, even though he spoke excellent Danish as a second language.\r\n\r\n\u00bbDanes have a first language ideal associated with the communication,\u00ab says Alberte Ritchie Green. Danish should preferably sound exactly as it normally does, if there is to be a seamless exchange.\r\n\r\n27-year-old Alberte Ritchie Green got her MA In Danish at the end of 2022 and now teaches highly-educated non-Danes in Danish at a language school. Her students say that when they go about their lives and speak to Danes using the phrases they have just learned, Danes automatically switch into English.\r\n\r\nNative speakers of one of the larger world languages, like say English, are accustomed to hearing their language spoken in a multitude of different levels and ways, often with strong accents. In Denmark, however, people are not accustomed to hearing their language as a second, third or fifth language.\r\n\r\nWhen the baker responds in English when a customer orders coffee and cinnamon buns in Danish with a strong accent, it is an attempt to ease the interaction and avoid having one of the sides losing face in the language interaction. Even though the pastry normally ends up with the customer, it is demotivating for them when they want to practice their language.\n<!-- end of module 1 -->\nEveryday phrases are one thing. Teaching at an academic level is completely different. The University of Copenhagen expects international researchers to be able to contribute actively to teaching in Danish after three to six years.\r\n\r\nThis was what Alberte Ritchie Green's master\u2019s thesis was about on the Danish degree programme. It turned out that the language requirement is seen as a major burden for a number of international teaching staff who move from a status as academic expert to a language novice.\r\n<h3>New language policy, new requirements<\/h3>\r\nThe University of Copenhagen has had a language policy since 2008. At first, a parallel language policy was introduced between Danish and English, and the primary objective of the policy was that all employees should be able to teach in academic English.\r\n\r\nAt that time, there were no requirements for international employees to have Danish skills, but this changed in the next decade:\r\n\r\n\u00bbThe political focus shifted, and there was a feeling that Danish should not lose status in universities,\u00ab says Alberte Ritchie Green when the University Post met her in the old university library.\r\n\r\nThe proportion of international staff at the University of Copenhagen has risen dramatically in recent decades, and 40 per cent of all researchers had a non-Danish background in 2020. This trend put Danish researchers under more pressure to teach, because the teaching on most bachelor's degree programmes is in Danish.\r\n<div class=\"factbox\">\r\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">Parallel language use<\/p>\r\n<strong>Internationalization and globalization<\/strong> have meant that both staff and students increasingly have to function in both English and Danish and sometimes also in other languages in their daily work at the university. In order to support its employees and students in meeting these challenges, the University of Copenhagen has had parallel language use as a theme in its strategic objectives since 2008, when it set up the Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language Use (CIP).\r\n\r\n<em>www.cip.ku.dk<\/em>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nIn January 2021, the Board tried to solve this problem with a new language policy that contains this sentence:\r\n\r\n\u00bbIn general, it is expected that [international] tenure track assistant professors, associate professors, and professors can contribute to teaching in Danish after 3-6 years, including grading and supervising students.\u00ab\r\n\r\nWhen the language requirement was introduced, Alberte Ritchie Green was working as a student assistant at CIP, the University of Copenhagen's Centre for internationalisation and Parallel Language Use on South Campus, where international staff take on the challenge of learning Danish.\r\n\r\nWhen the news of the Danish requirement broke on the university's intranet KUnet, it set off<a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/researchers-not-happy-with-tough-new-danish-language-policy-draft\/\"> a torrent of critical comments<\/a> from staff with international backgrounds. They feared that it would slow down their career in the competition with their colleagues who have Danish as their first language.\r\n\r\nThe critics also feared that it would place the University of Copenhagen at a disadvantage in the competition for the most talented researchers. Why go to a tiny country which requires that you learn a difficult language, when you can choose a university where you can teach in English or another language that you already master?\r\n\r\nWhen the University Post interviewed John Renner Hansen, who led the committee that formulated the new language policy in 2020, he said:\r\n\r\n\u00bbThere won\u2019t be a big threatening head of department at the end of this time period saying \u2018you will be fired if you don\u2019t live up to this policy\u2019. It should be seen as guidance, so that heads of department together with associate professors and professors can work out individual plans and possibly a reduction of international researchers\u2019 workload in the period where they are to take Danish-language courses.\u00ab\r\n<h3>More Danish than the Danes<\/h3>\r\nThe use of Danish as a second language among the highly educated is something that has not been researched extensively, says Alberte Ritchie Green.\r\n\r\nAs a CIP employee, she had access to lists of participants from previous courses, but it was no easy task to find people allowing her to observe their teaching.\r\n\r\n\u00bbMost people found it intimidating to have me inside with my recording equipment, even though I emphasised that I would observe the interaction, but not assess their Danish skills.\u00ab\n<!-- end of module 2 -->\nAlberte Ritchie Green was in contact with 50 international employees before she managed to get ten people to agree to be interviewed. She was also allowed to observe four of them at work as teachers and supervisors. The employees had been in Denmark between three and 22 years, had all received Danish instruction, and most of them had begun to teach in Danish.\r\n\r\nBoth in the teaching situations and in the in-depth interviews, Green noticed that there is a prevalent language norm that assesses Danish as a second language considerably worse than Danish as a first language. This is both among the Danish students and among the international staff themselves.\r\n\r\n\u00bbTheir position as academic experts is challenged by their status as a language novice when they start to teach in Danish.\u00ab\r\n<div class=\"factbox\">\r\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">HEr thesis:<\/p>\r\nAlberte Ritchie Green\u2019s master's thesis title is <em>\u00bbYou become more Danish than the Danish teachers\u00ab \u2013 an investigation into Danish as a second language among international academic staff at UCPH.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nAlberte Ritchie Green has both seen and heard staff lose face and authority when they teach in Danish.\r\n\r\n\u00bbMy examples show that the academic staff get into a difficult and uncomfortable situation when they have to ask the students for help.\u00ab\r\n\r\nThe power relationship is shifted when the teaching staff fall short and have to appeal to the students to find the right word, concept, or pronunciation. And suddenly the students have the role of experts.\r\n\r\nThis leads to an asymmetry, says Alberte Ritchie Green, and it is something that international staff are acutely aware of, and handle in different ways.\r\n\r\nThe master\u2019s thesis has borrowed its title \u00bbYou become more Danish than the Danish teachers\u00ab from a Dutch academic who is proud of teaching in Danish. He also gauges his own success with reference to the first language ideal, says Alberte Ritchie Green:\r\n\r\n\u00bbHe translates all concepts into Danish, for example, when he prepares the teaching. A native speaker would not do this, and many of the concepts that he uses are all English loanwords, but he cannot know this. An English loanword that works and is used in Danish like \u2018feedback\u2019, for example, he translated into \u2018tilbagekoblinger\u2019 \u2013 and from a communicative perspective this won\u2019t work well, even though the intentions were good.\u00ab\r\n<h3>Cat or tails<\/h3>\r\nAll the staff that Alberte Ritchie Green have spoken to, are striving to get up to par with their Danish colleagues. But this can be an arduous process for some of them. In her master's thesis, she also discusses how this path can also be unnecessarily lonely.\r\n\r\n\u00bbThey all speak English, and even though it is a language they share with the students, they still prefer not to use it as a staging point \u2013 they want to speak Danish and only Danish. This actually contradicts the original language policy's goal of parallel language use,\u00ab Alberte Ritchie Green notes.\n<!-- end of module 3 -->\nIn the thesis, there is an example from teaching in an advanced statistics programme. A student uses the term \u2018plat eller krone\u2019 or \u2018heads or tails\u2019 in a statistical, flipping a coin, context. The instructor is not familiar with the idiom. And even though another student offers the English \u2018heads or tails\u2019 translation, the instructor continues with the Danish expression. It gets a minor, but crucial, semantic twist along the way however, as in the instructor's rendering it turns into \u2018kat eller krone\u2019 or \u2018cat or tails\u2019.\r\n\r\n<strong>READ ALSO:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/bad-accent-is-considered-bad-teaching\/\"><em> Bad accent is considered bad teaching<\/em><\/a>\r\n\r\nAll of the instructors have had poor evaluations the first time they teach in Danish.\r\n\r\n\u00bbThis is really problematic,\u00ab says Alberte Ritchie Green. \u00bbOne thing is that the employees have to live with the way they lose face in the classroom. But they are also criticised for their accents in the student evaluations. They are simply being rated as poor teachers, and this is not exactly something that increases their motivation.\u00ab\r\n\r\nOne of the contributors has said that the international teaching staff find that it is, in particular, the weakest students who find it difficult to abstract themselves from the language complications that arise in the course of the teaching.\r\n<h3>Thirty-something vowel sounds<\/h3>\r\nAll the people Alberte Ritchie Green interviewed express negative opinions about the UCPH language requirements.\r\n\r\n\u00bbNone of them resist it. But they find it incredibly tough. Several of them say that they did not know in advance that this was an obligatory requirement. They only realized it after arrival. Suddenly, after six months, there is a manager that asks you whether you are not taking any Danish lessons, and makes it sound like this is something that you just do.\u00ab\r\n\r\nFor international employees with a Danish personal identification CPR number, getting teaching in Danish at publicly-funded language schools is free for the first five years after arrival in Denmark.\r\n\r\n<em>Does Alberte Ritchie Green reckon it is at all possible to learn the Danish language, with its thirty-something vowel sounds, within the time frame set by the university?<\/em>\r\n\r\n\u00bbThere are, of course, differences between Scandinavians, Germans and, say, people from Asia who are accustomed to completely different linguistic structures. Most people will be able to pass the study exam within three years, but they would not be able to do research and all the other things in parallel. And the university can't employ people and then keep them from doing their academic assignments, even though this would be best if you were only looking at it from a language perspective.\u00ab\r\n\r\nThe time spent on learning Danish to a level that satisfies both them and their students is putting foreign staff at a disadvantage in the academic career race if you are to believe the master\u2019s thesis.\r\n\r\nWhile the language requirement was partly motivated by the need for the Danish academic staff to be relieved from extra obligations, Green\u2019s interviewees say that it is now the careers of the international researchers that are impaired by the language requirement and the taken-for-granted first language ideal.\r\n\r\n\u00bbThe time they spend perfecting their Danish, after all, is taken from doing other things. And still the positions go to the Danes if they apply for them in direct competition with a person who has Danish as their first language, they say. My interviewees also find it difficult to find their way into leading positions, boards of studies and collegial bodies because of the language barrier,\u00ab says Green.\r\n<h3>High expectations<\/h3>\r\nFrom her own CIP experience, Alberte Ritchie Green knows that several language teachers note that their participants not only need to learn Danish on their courses, but also need a space where they can talk openly about how they perceive expectations, as many people feel pressured by the language requirements.\r\n\r\n\u00bbThey have made a life for themselves here and brought their family with them. And they are afraid that they can be fired or thrown out of the country if they do not live up to the requirements.\u00ab\r\n\r\nNone of the academic staff in Green\u2019s thesis have been threatened with dismissal, something that the head of the original language policy committee John Renner Hansen also denied would happen.\r\n\r\n\u00bbOnly one of them has faced an explicit language requirement. The others have faced vague recommendations, but most of them have already sought out language instruction at an early stage themselves.\u00ab\r\n\r\nIn her thesis, Alberte Ritchie Green concludes that both international staff and Danish students could benefit from what she calls \u00bba more active language policy\u00ab with a clear alignment of expectations based on the UCPH language policy.\r\n\r\n\u00bbIt is a lot to demand of teaching staff that they themselves have to defend their speaking Danish as a second language to the students. I think it would be better if, say, an academic manager stood forward and said, <em>\u2018you have this instructor who speaks Danish as a second language. She has been hired on the basis of her academic skills, and she has not chosen the language of instruction herself. If the language is causing you problems, please come to me, and we will find a solution\u2019<\/em>.\u00ab\n<!-- end of module 4 -->\nAccording to Alberte Ritchie Green, language policy work should start already during the hiring process. It needs to be transparent what the university expects and what kind of help it can offer.\r\n\r\n\u00bbIn my investigation, it varies from department to department and faculty to faculty, how the language policy is administered. There are international employees who do not even know that UCPH has a language centre that offers courses that fit their requirements.\r\n\r\nThey get a huge benefit giving each other feedback \u2013 also across faculties and academic interests \u2013 instead of each of them having to wrestle with the language requirement on their own.\u00ab\r\n\r\n<strong>READ ALSO:<\/strong> <em><a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/lecturer-provoked-by-poor-english-evaluation\/\">Lecturer provoked by poor English evaluation<\/a><\/em>\r\n\r\nIt hurts to get bad evaluations on your teaching when it is actually the accent that the students are grading. One of the academic staff interviewed for Alberte Ritchie Green\u2019s thesis formulates the first language ideal in the following way:\r\n\r\n\u00bbYou want to avoid your own expectations being below the expectations of the students, so you deliberately demand a lot of yourself.\u00ab\r\n\r\n\u00bbYou don't want to look like someone talking gibberish.\u00ab\n<!-- end of module 5 -->\n","post_title":"Academics lose status when they teach Danish with an accent","post_excerpt":"International researchers have to teach in Danish after three to six years at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH). But the Danish students give them poor evaluations because they speak Danish as a second language. Alberte Ritchie Green has investigated what it feels like to go from being an academic expert to being a language novice.\r\n","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"academics-lose-status-when-they-teach-with-an-accent","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2023-04-11 10:49:06","post_modified_gmt":"2023-04-11 08:49:06","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/man-vil-ikke-fremstaa-som-nogen-der-sludrer-med-sproget\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}},{"reference":{"ID":22921,"post_author":"12","post_date":"2010-05-01 03:55:00","post_date_gmt":"0000-00-00 00:00:00","post_content":"A poor student evaluation of a teacher\u2019s English-language skills may lead to a poor student evaluation of the teacher\u2019s competence and the course in general.\r\n\r\nThis is certainly the hypothesis of researchers in the project Students\u2019 Perceptions of the English of Academics. \r\n\r\nCurrent research will shed light on whether lecturers that are evaluated badly in terms of English-language, also are evaluated badly in terms of professional skills.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"node\/5362\">Read the University Post article <em>Lecturer provoked by poor English evaluation<\/em> here. <\/a>\r\n\r\n\u00bbWe suspect that there is a connection between bad English evaluations and bad scores on professional competence,\u00ab says Christian Jensen, assistant professor at the Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language CIP who is participating in the project.\r\n\r\n\u00bbIf students hear poor language skills, then they may take this as a signal that the teacher is generally not very skilled,\u00ab he says.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"node\/5366\">Read the University Post article <em>A new look at teaching in English <\/em> here. <\/a>\r\n<h2>Good at English, more tolerant<\/h2>\r\n\r\nThe hypothesis is based on sociolinguistic research which has shown that people\u2019s accents \u2013 whether native or non-native - affects how we perceive them in terms of skills, intelligence, friendliness etc., he explains.\r\n\r\nOther, previous, research shows other trends in student evaluations.\r\n\r\nThe better the English-language skills of the student, the more tolerant they are of bad English.\r\n\r\n\u00bbStudents who are good at English, are milder in their evaluations of the lecturer\u2019s English-language,\u00ab Christian Jensen says.\r\n\r\n<h2>Basic English is best, says student<\/h2>\r\nIn the meantime, some academics\u2019 basic English skills may actually give them a better rapport with internationals who are struggling themselves. \r\n\r\nAs one international student who prefers to remain anonymous expresses it:\r\n\r\n\u00bbI like the class because of the simple English he uses. I know that it may not be the best for a lecturer to have just basic English skills, but I somehow feel better when seeing him talking this way. I see that when he can use this level of English as a professor, I don't need to be ashamed of my own English skills\u00ab.\r\n\r\nmiy@adm.ku.dk\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","post_title":"Bad accent is considered bad teaching","post_excerpt":"Students interpret the teacher\u2019s dialect and bad grammar as lack of competence","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"bad-accent-is-considered-bad-teaching","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2017-01-21 05:19:18","post_modified_gmt":"2017-01-21 05:19:18","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=22921\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}},{"reference":{"ID":22923,"post_author":"12","post_date":"2010-05-01 04:00:00","post_date_gmt":"0000-00-00 00:00:00","post_content":"In English-language classes, most teachers and students rely on a language that is not there own. This opens up a whole range of potential misunderstandings.\r\n\r\nHowever, Joyce Myra Kling Soren, who is at the start of a PhD project on English-language teaching at the Faculty of Life Sciences, is not rushing to any conclusions. \r\n\r\nWhat appears to be a language issue, may actually be something else entirely; cultural confusion. \r\n\r\n<a href=\"node\/5362\">Read the University Post article <em>Lecturer provoked by poor English evaluation<\/em> here. <\/a>\r\n\r\n<h2>Academic cultures vary<\/h2>\r\n\u00bbWhen you have people coming from different cultures, they may still not share an academic culture. It\u2019s not just the language, because the words you might have are all the same, but if you don\u2019t have an academic culture in common, you might still miss each other entirely,\u00ab Joyce points out. \r\n\r\nAs yet, her own research is in the embryonic stages. \r\n\r\n\u00bbA great deal of the research on the subject is from the student\u2019s point of view, but I am looking at it from the viewpoint of the teacher,\u00ab she explains. \r\n\r\n<h2>Non-natives teaching non-natives<\/h2>\r\nHer project also concentrates on the relatively new situation in many internationalised universities of non-native English speakers teaching other non-native speakers. \r\n\r\nA situation where the possibilities for misunderstanding are, it would seem, doubled. \r\n\r\n<a href=\"node\/5364\"> See the University Post article <em> Bad accent is considered bad teaching<\/em> here. <\/a>\r\n\r\n\u00bbMost of the research on the subject deals with native speakers teaching internationals. For the first ten or 15 years of international education, universities brought in English-speaking professors to hold lectures in English.\u00ab\r\n \r\n\u00bbBut that has now been replaced by local teachers or sometimes teachers from other countries coming in and using English as a medium,\u00ab she continues. \r\n\r\n<h2>Life Sciences to be certified<\/h2>\r\nHer focus on the Faculty of Life Sciences is due to the faculty\u2019s pro-active stance in relation to internationalisation, she says. From September, 13 of the faculty\u2019s 16 master\u2019s degrees will be in English.\r\n\r\nThe Faculty of Life Sciences has provided the first 19 volunteers for the English-language certification process at the University of Copenhagen, which Joyce has helped to develop. The faculty has also signed a contract to ensure that all of its teachers will go through the certification process. \r\n\r\nCertification is a tool which both assesses lecturers\u2019 language skills, and helps them to improve, Joyce explains. \r\n\u00bbIt is not just a test,\u00ab she says. \r\n\r\n\u00bbThere is a formative element and extensive feedback. We give teachers an assessment of areas they are good at, areas that they could improve. They also get a video of their performance and access to us for a follow-up meeting.\u00ab\r\n\r\nAnd when teachers do not make the grade, it is not up to the Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language Use (CIP) to tell them what to do. They simply offer guidance. \r\n\r\n\u00bbWe can assess, but we do not make any demands. It is like going to the doctor,\u00ab explains Joyce.\r\n\r\nluci@adm.ku.dk\r\n","post_title":"A new look at teaching in English","post_excerpt":"Claimed language issues arising in classes held in English may actually be cultural misunderstandings, says PhD student","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"a-new-look-at-teaching-in-english","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2017-01-21 05:19:26","post_modified_gmt":"2017-01-21 05:19:26","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=22923\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}}],"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":47,"name":"Opinion","slug":"opinion","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":47,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":333,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[{"term_id":645,"name":"parallel language","slug":"parallel-language","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":645,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":6,"filter":"raw"}],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":16,"name":"Opinion","slug":"opinion","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":16,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":2040,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[{"term_id":5468,"name":"Optional","slug":"optional-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5468,"taxonomy":"translation_priority","description":"","parent":0,"count":672,"filter":"raw"}]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/sifhoegfeatured-1280x670.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149812"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149842,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149812\/revisions\/149842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}