English? Nej tak, say humanists

19/11-09 kl. 16:41 Education / Humanities

Pharmaceutical staff like English-language teaching - theology and humanities staff don’t

by Mike Young

The human condition and its relation to the Deity are best left studied in the Danish.This could be the conclusion drawn from the survey of staff carried out by the Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language Use.

Read the article Copenhagen staff: Yes to more courses in English here.

Three out of every four University of Copenhagen employees from the Humanities and Theology faculties agree that English-language teaching will lead to a poorer learning outcome for (Danish, ed.) students. Only half of those from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences agree.

Is the increased use of English in the university a threat to Danish as a scientific language?

Yes it is, say 72 and 84 per cent respectively of the English-sceptical humanists and theologians.No, not necessarily, say 54 per cent of the sample of Natural Science and Pharmaceutical Science staff.

Depends on the object of study

The English-language scepticism of the humanists and theologians and the positive attitude of the natural scientists to English come as no surprise to Christian Jensen, one of the authors of the study. Several individuals in the natural sciences have been outspoken about the need for English in the lecture halls.

As for the humanities – their scepticism makes sense too:

»Several commentators from the Faculty of Humanities have argued that English-medium courses may not to the same degree make sense in the Humanities and Theology faculties, where the object of study is the actual text, for example a literary text or a historical document in a specific language. They see this as being in contrast to the natural scientists, for whom the medium of instruction may not be as important because the object of study is not a text,« he says.

miy@adm.ku.dk

1 comment

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22/11-09 kl. 06:52 Nasty foreigner:

Danish is great for subjects that have been around for hundreds of years, like Christian theology and Danish history. But many fields have little or no research, publications, or reference works in Danish. If you insist on teaching these subjects in Danish, you are just shooting yourself in the foot. Surely teachers at KU (and elsewhere) are smart enough to decide for themselves when to use Danish and when to use English (or another language), based on their own knowledge, subject, and experience, as well as on students' needs. The idea that Danish will disappear is silly, since millions of people speak it in their daily lives. Why are you afraid of bilingualism? If some terms do not exist, it is because there is insufficient need for them. People are obviously not discussing those topics much. Language changes by itself, in relation to the times and the habits of those who use it. You can't stop it and you can't direct it. My students (in the Humanities) want to do their education in English. They are citizens of the world, not just a little country whose language no one else speaks. And there's no reason why they cannot be participants in both.

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