国内外の大学教育カリキュラムの国際化の流れを考える : 留学の短期化・英語言語媒体科目(EMI)を志向する国際教育

摘要

With the increasing impacts of globalization on societies worldwide, higher education has experienced sustained pressure to adopt and adapt to a wide variety of socioeconomic changes. Universities in both Japan and overseas have endeavored to undertake complex and far reaching programs of educational internationalization, and while there has been great diversity in institutional strategies for accomplishing such internationalization initiatives, there are a number of specific tendencies that serve to orient such processes. This paper explores a number of these trends with a particular emphasis given to institutional approaches to student mobility and internationalization of curricula. For example, over the last decade study abroad periods (length of student stay abroad) around the world have become shorter, with periods of less than 8 weeks becoming more popular. In addition, there has been a dramatic expansion of the number of hosting countries or regions for study abroad students globally; with the two largest importing countries the UK and USA now facing many “new players” in a more competitive international environment. Another highly influential development can be observed with the emergence of EMI (English as a Medium of Instruction) curricula in non-English speaking countries, particularly those in the Asia-Pacific region. While the dramatic increase in the number of EMI programs has afforded for a significant increase in potential study destinations for students, the pathways for EMI promotion in higher education are not always the easy ones. The paper also provides a brief exploration of some key factors that might illuminate the ubiquity of these trends.