Support for English-Medium Master's Programmes

Support for English-Medium Master's Programmes

This is the site of the project Language Support for English-Medium Master’s Programmes ("Englanninkielisten maisteriohjelmien kielellinen tuki" in Finnish). We hope this site helps you acquaint yourself with what we do at the University of Helsinki in order to help guarantee that English-medium instruction is of high quality.

The idea to set up this project came about when the University of Helsinki announced its plans to establish about 30 English-medium Master’s programmes in future years. As of the autumn of 2009, this goal has almost been met.

The project, funded by the Teaching Development Funds of the University of Helsinki, started in January 2007 and will run until the end of 2009. In these three years, our goal is to help the University in its internationalization process – a process that is of primary importance in the University Strategy 2007-2009 (pdf) and the forthcoming University Strategy 2010-2012 (pdf) . This importance has also been recognised in the University of Helsinki Language Policy (pdf).

For a number of years, the University has offered language support for staff who are or will be teaching courses in English. By sponsoring this project, the University has started to pay attention to the language support needs of students in English-medium Master's programmes. The assumption is that if support is given, students will be better able to cope in an English-language learning environment and ultimately when writing their Master's thesis in English.

The aims of the project are to:

1. map out the various language needs of students in English-medium Master’s programmes (and other English-medium instruction);
2. respond to these needs by developing and testing various support systems; and
3. after piloting, set up language support systems in which we hope to be able to play a part in the future.

During the project we have co-operated with departments in several faculties. We have had a unique opportunity to participate in the planning of the emerging two-year English-medium programmes. This co-operation has led to various support systems that we are currently testing.

Some of us in this project team were involved in previous, related projects (see Teaching Through English: http://kielikeskus.helsinki.fi/tte). These projects looked into the language-related needs of both teachers and students in English-medium instruction at the University of Helsinki at a time when English-medium courses were mainly set up to cater for short-term exchange students and when English-medium Master’s programmes as such did not exist.

On this site you will find information on:

• The project team
• Our project partners and the forms of support developed for them
• Key language support needs of students and staff that have so far been identified
• Recent publications and conference presentations