Communicative competence and didactic challenges : a case study of English-medium instruction in third-level education in Switzerland

摘要

Looking in greater detail at the role of lecturers, this publication reports results of a project introducing English as a medium of instruction in a bachelor-level programme in the natural sciences offered by a university of applied sciences in German-speaking Switzerland. The three papers in this publication focus on key aspects arising from the pilot phase, outlining challenges involved when functioning communities of practice are disrupted by the change of the medium of communication as well as communicative processes that are at work in creating a new community of practice on the basis of English as a lingua franca.