Verbum E-ISSN 2538-8746
2022, vol. 13, DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.15388/Verb.35

Multilingualism as a Key Challenge for Higher Education Language Policy: The ARQUS Perspective

Prof. Dr. Olaf Bärenfänger
Leipzig University
Goethestr. 2, 04109 Leipzig
Email: baerenfaenger@uni-leipzig.de
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6020-8602

Research Interests: Language Policy, Digital Language Learning, Research Methods, Skills Diagnostics, Curriculum Development

Alba Delgado, MA
Leipzig University
Goethestr.
2, 04109 Leipzig
Email: adelgado@uni-leipzig.de
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1483-6506

Research Interests: Language Policy, Second/Foreign Language Acquisition and Pedagogy, Spanish Applied Linguistics, Multilingual and Digital Didactics

Kerstin Gackle, MA, MA
Leipzig University
Nikolaistr. 6–10, 04109 Leipzig
Email: kerstin.gackle@uni-leipzig.de
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3505-6544

Research Interests: Language Policy, Language in Higher Education, Translation Strategies, Academic Writing, Writing Consultations

Abstract. Language plays an essential role in education, where it serves as both the medium of instruction and key to communication. To warrant successful teaching, learning, research and academic mobility, universities must develop a clear vision about the role of language(s) at their institution. For example, they must develop strategies to promote continual growth of their students’ and staff’s professional and academic language skills. This article will report on an initiative undertaken within the Arqus European University Alliance to formulate a comprehensive language policy. To do so, five thematic areas essential to language policies in higher education were identified and questions were developed to gather information from all of the partner universities. This information was then incorporated in the planning and design of a language policy for the Alliance. The Arqus Language Policy now stands as a guideline for university members to develop a clear vision of language in higher education as well as a joint reflection and agreement on the role of multilingual communication in society. In the second phase of the project, further actions and measures can be planned on this basis.

Keywords: Language Policy, Higher Education, Higher Education Space, Multilingualism, Pluriculturalism, Language Planning

JEL Code: G35

Copyright © 2022 Olaf Bärenfänger, Alba Delgado, Kerstin Gackle. Published by Vilnius University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Pateikta / Submitted on 01.01.21

Introduction

At the Gothenburg Social Summit in November 2017, the European Commission presented a proposal to promote the establishment of European higher education alliances. The vision to create a common European higher education area was a key factor in this. As a result of the first round of calls for proposals, 17 European higher education alliances were earmarked for funding in 2019. In the course of the second round of calls for proposals in 2020, a further 24 higher education alliances obtained funding. This means that 280 higher education institutions (HEIs) received a total amount of 287 million euros from the EU budget for a period of three years. The programme has now been relaunched for the period 2022–2026.

The idea behind European higher education alliances is to create the following:

an innovative, globally competitive and attractive European Education Area and European Research Area, in full synergy with the European Higher Education Area, by helping to boost the excellence dimension of higher education, research and innovation, while promoting gender equality, inclusiveness, and equity, allowing for seamless and ambitious transnational cooperation between higher education institutions in Europe, and inspiring the transformation of higher education. (European Commission, 2022).

This holistic approach of linking higher education on a transnational level with other educational domains and with research in order to increase Europe’s competitiveness and attractiveness is recognisable here. The performance dimension is flanked by the demand to promote European values such as gender equality, inclusion and equal opportunities and at the same time to transform the higher education landscape. Education is therefore not understood as the decontextualised transmission of knowledge, skills and competences, but always within an ethical framework.

In order to achieve this ambitious form of cooperation between European universities, the higher education alliances should fulfil a number of criteria (European Commission, 2022). In particular, they should

Such close cooperation between universities that are integrated at the European level brings one topic in particular to the fore: language and culture. Europe is characterised by a great diversity of languages and a cultural wealth that has grown over many centuries. This is as much a source of pride in the common linguistic and cultural heritage as it is a source of barriers to communication. Consequently, one of the key challenges for the establishment and further development of European higher education alliances should be to clarify in detail the role of language(s) and culture(s) in educational and administrative processes at universities. More precisely, a catalyst for the successful realisation of internationalisation, particularly in terms of academic integration, is the formulation of language policies that cater to the needs of both domestic and international students in terms of acquiring subject knowledge (Lau & Lin 2017, pp. 438).

In order to check the form in which the higher education alliances selected in the first two funding rounds have addressed language policy issues, an internet search was carried out on the participating alliances and German higher education institutions. As of 18 October 2021, only four of 43 higher education alliances had published a language policy document on their website. Of the German universities that are part of a higher education alliance, only eight had a language policy document available on their website. Even if this anecdotal analysis of websites does not allow the conclusion that the alliances and participating HEIs have not dealt with language policy issues on a larger scale, the tendency seems clear: language policy does not (yet) play the role it should in the context of the higher education alliances. And given the essential importance of language and culture for this European project, language policy must indeed become central within each alliance. This observation corroborates an analysis by Jenkins (2013) who complained that universities’ language policies do not necessarily reflect their international character.

In the Arqus European University Alliance (https://www.arqus-alliance.eu), which in the first funding phase linked the universities of Bergen (Norway), Granada (Spain), Graz (Austria), Leipzig (Germany), Lyon (France), Padua (Italy) and Vilnius (Lithuania), language policy played a prominent role as early as in the application process. At this point, the action line “Multilingual and Multicultural University” was established, whose tasks include formulating an alliance-wide language policy as well as developing and implementing language policy measures. (Each of the participating universities is responsible for an action line; the coordination of the action line “Multilingual and Multicultural University” was taken over by Leipzig University).

This article first reports on the status of language policies in higher education institutions. It also considers the significance of language policies in the context of higher education institutions. Subsequently, central language policy approaches and initiatives taken by the Council of Europe are presented and discussed. In view of the insufficient consideration of language policy in European higher education alliances to date, an approach is then presented with which a language policy for the Arqus European University Alliance, which is jointly supported by all members, was developed. The aim here is to identify aspects that are involved in clarifying the role of language in educational processes and structures in higher education. Ideally, the collection of these aspects can also serve as a guideline for other higher education institutions or higher education alliances to formulate their own language policy.

Language Policy in Higher Education

This paper adopts a broad understanding of language policy that focuses on concrete language-related measures and emphasises the value-based dimension of language policy. Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson (1997) define language policy as a “broad overarching term for decisions on rights and access to languages and on the roles and functions of languages in a given policy” (pp. 116–118). The decisive aspect here is that decisions are fundamentally made in language policy. Language policy therefore has a fundamentally normative character; it is intended to shape and regulate. The decisions in the foreground concern the rights of people, their access to language(s), and the roles and functions of language within a social group. An essential feature is the group reference of language policy: the related decisions concern the members of a definable community (for which the political body formulating language policy has the decision-making power).

The research literature has generally acknowledged the crucial role of language policy for internationalisation efforts (Lau & Lin 2017). In the context of academic mobility, for example, universities have to deal with increasingly linguistically heterogenous groups of students (Smit 2010). Whereas HEIs clearly benefit from international students, this group of students also poses challenges to their operations and administrations (Vickers & Brednia 2007). Internationalisation has consequently led to a strong increase in the use of English (for the Bologna area cf. Kuteeva & Airey 2013), sometimes labelled as “Englishization” (cf. e.g. Erling & Hilgendorf 2006). The hegemonic role of English has often been criticised (e.g. Kirkpatrick 2011). For example, Mortenson (2014) argues that the idea that internationalisation should mean the use of English as a lingua franca is essentially misguided. In Nordic countries, the dominance of English has fuelled the development of alternative concepts such as parallelingualism (Hultgren 2014). The general idea is to ensure an equitable use of English and the local languages. Another strand of research focuses on concepts that use a language other than the local language as a medium of instruction: Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL; cf. e.g. Fortanet-Gómez 2013).

As far as the official politics of the European Union are concerned, which defines itself by its linguistic and cultural diversity, its political entities have been intensively engaged in language policy. Consequently, at the core of its own identity is its demand that we not only respect linguistic and cultural diversity, but also protect and nurture Europe’s rich heritage. This extraordinarily strong commitment to linguistic and cultural diversity is prominently enshrined in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union, which states, “It shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and shall ensure that Europe’s cultural heritage is safeguarded and enhanced” (p. 5 ). The Treaty of Lisbon also takes up this idea again, adding a religious dimension to the requirement: “The Union shall respect cultural, religious and linguistic diversity” (Article 22 of the Treaty of Lisbon).

Although these two fundamental treaty documents provide the general guidelines for formulating language policies, these have been differentiated in terms of content and underpinned with concrete measures in a large number of other documents. One extremely important line of action for the education system is the creation of a common European education area. In this regard, the European Commission requires every pupil to master at least two modern foreign languages (European Commission, 2017). Further measures include the mutual recognition of higher education qualifications, the intensification of academic mobility – especially within the framework of the ERASMUS+ programme – and the targeted promotion of digital literacy (ibid.). To create the Common European Higher Education Area, the European Commission has established a number of funding priorities:

Overall, it can be assumed that the above measures have had a broad impact in Europe and far beyond. This is particularly evident in the higher education sector, which is the focus of this article. ERASMUS alone supported more than 4.4 million people between 1987 – the start of the programme – and 2017 (German Academic Exchange Service, 2017, p. 3). Another example is the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. A wealth of academic publications demonstrates how the principle of communicative, action-oriented foreign language teaching is increasingly gaining a foothold in all areas of the education system. The foreign language skills to be attained from primary school through university to in-service adult education or senior citizens’ education are now aligned across the board to the Framework of Reference. In many member states of the Council of Europe, the competence goals of the national school and university curricula have even attained legal status. Textbooks and examinations are also consistently aligned with the Framework, which against this background may be regarded as the most influential language policy document of all.

Even though the Framework and the accompanying documents produced in its context primarily focus on foreign language competence, a reference back to the language policy goals of the Council of Europe is unmistakable. Right at the beginning, the Framework develops the concept of the European Citizen. For example, the volume accompanying the Framework argues that language policies are an important tool for increasing the quality of foreign language teaching and for promoting a Europe with cosmopolitan and multilingual citizens: “The provision of common reference points is subsidiary to the CEFR’s main aim of facilitating quality in language education and promoting a Europe of open-minded plurilingual citizens” (CEFR Companion Volume, 2018, p. 26).

Somewhat later, the human image of the frame of reference is made explicit. The guiding idea is the multilingualism and pluriculturalism of the European citizen: “Seeing learners as plurilingual, pluricultural beings means allowing them to use all their linguistic resources when necessary, encouraging them to see similarities and regularities as well as differences between languages and cultures” (Council of Europe, 2018, p. 27).

In view of its impressive successes and the diverse fields of action, many more details of European language policy could be presented and discussed here. Even with an abbreviated presentation, the unusual breadth, diversity and undeniable successes of the European language policy can be noted, which is at the same time a key component of education policy. This makes it all the more interesting to ask what role language policy can play as a possible element of European higher education policy, the most recent flagship of which is the initiative to form European higher education alliances. Potential elements and structures of language policies in the higher education context are the focus of the following section.

Language Policy in the Arqus Context

Language plays an eminent role in learning, teaching and research at universities. On the one hand, language is a medium for teaching and learning; without it, knowledge and skills cannot be imparted. At the same time, however, language is also an instrument for generating insights and new knowledge; it thus has a heuristic function. Finally, language is a learning object as students need to be very familiar with the language of studying, of their subject and of scholarship for their academic activities. To the extent that university-specific vocabulary and text types are not available in other areas of communication, students must acquire this vocabulary and learn about the specifics of the text types in their field. This is a challenge for both native and non-native speakers alike.

Even at the beginning of the Arqus European University Alliance, the stakeholders involved were aware of the important role language would play within the Alliance. Before the official application documents were submitted, a working group had already begun to develop a mission statement on the Alliance’s language policy. Taking the importance of languages into account, the “Multilingual and Multicultural University” action line was also established, in which all activities relating to Alliance-related language and cross-cultural education were brought together. Leipzig University is responsible for managing this action line, and each of the other partner universities is in charge of its own, thematically unique action line. In the institutional organisation, great importance was attached to assigning all partners project responsibility for the work packages in the “Multilingual and Multicultural University” action line. In detail, the Action Line includes the following work packages:

  1. The development of an Alliance-wide language policy document: the Arqus Charter on Language Policy
  2. The organisation of a symposium on language policy at universities, including the documentation of the results in an open-source publication
  3. The development of a staff training strategy
  4. The development of a system for mutual recognition of certificates for linguistic and cross-cultural competences
  5. The planning and implementation of workshops to teach linguistic and cross-cultural competences
  6. The exchange and sharing of courses on linguistic and cross-cultural competences in the run-up to academic or professional mobilities
  7. The exchange of volunteers for language and cultural exchanges at schools
  8. The exchange of language assistants within the Arqus European University Alliance
  9. The establishment of a freely accessible comprehensive online database of higher education terms in the Alliance languages.

During the first funding phase, most of these work packages were completed under the direction of a leader and co-leader, each from a different university. The only deviation was in Work Package 7 because the deployment of volunteers to schools was not possible due to the pandemic. In general, the COVID pandemic meant that many of the activities originally planned in presence had to be transferred – with minor modifications – to the digital space.

3. Development of the Arqus Charter on Language Policy

The development of a language policy for the Arqus Alliance was a multi-stage process. To begin, a task force was set up which first identified relevant subject areas and target groups to be included in the language policy. The guiding question here was what role language plays in educational processes either directly or with regard to the administration and support of such processes. As a result of the initial work, five major thematic blocks for the language policy were identified: language and intercultural skills for academic and professional success, language and intercultural competences for teaching at universities, multilingualism and pluriculturalism as educational goals, multilingual administrative and support structures, and gender-neutral, non-discriminatory and inclusive language. After these thematic blocks were identified, a set of questions was drafted to delve further into each area.

The final list of questions developed based on the five thematic areas is as follows:

Language and intercultural skills for academic and professional success

  • How do we ensure that students have the language skills (in German, English and other languages) and intercultural skills they need for multi-ethnic, multicultural and multilingual contexts at the beginning of their studies, during their studies and at the start of their careers?
  • How do we measure and assess these language skills in an appropriate and reliable way?
  • How can we plan and ensure high-quality language and intercultural education?
  • Should language and cultural skills be certified (e.g. via modules, intercultural seminars and Arqus joint offers such as in the work package "European heritage and citizenship")?
  • How are language learning and intercultural skills promoted and offered during students’ academic careers?
  • What support structures are necessary to ensure that students achieve the key skills they need now and in the future ? (e.g. digital literacy, self-guidance and social skills)
  • In what ways can internationalisation be initiated, implemented and reinforced through digital formats? To what extent does digitalisation contribute to language learning? How does the University promote an "international experience at home"? (see official EU doc, combining digital and multilingual competences)
  • How are students prepared to participate in international subject-specific discourses? (e.g. through courses such as Academic English for Doctoral Researchers)

Language skills in teaching

  • How do we ensure that teaching staff have the language skills (in German, English and other languages) they need?
  • Which (foreign) language and (inter)cultural elements (e.g. guidelines) should be part of study programmes and teaching?
  • What mechanisms (e.g. appointment processes and proof of competencies + experience) ensure that teaching staff have the necessary foreign language, multicultural and international skills?
  • What type of further and continuing training is offered to promote language and intercultural skills?
  • How are doctoral researchers and teaching staff prepared to participate in international subject-specific discourses? (e.g. through courses such as English Academic Writing and subject-specific language courses, i.e. language skills for specific purposes)
  • How much emphasis should be placed on foreign language texts (e.g. English-language articles at the bachelor’s level) in teaching? Should a recommendation be made or a university requirement established?
  • How can a multilingual and pluricultural environment be established at the University in order to attract excellent international guest lecturers and academic staff with an international background? That is, what type of support can be offered to attract and retain high potentials (e.g. Welcome Centre services)?

Multilingualism and pluriculturalism as an educational goal

  • What elements (e.g. study documents, accreditation procedures, and target agreements between Rectorate and Language Centre) contribute to internationalisation and the development of multilingualism and pluriculturalism as an educational goal?
  • What role does the University want to play in promoting subject-independent, intercultural and language skills (e.g. third mission, outreach, distance learning for the public, senior studies, and open houses)?
  • How does the University provide for opportunities to meet and engage in dialogue with international contacts?
  • How does the University see its role as a host for international academics?
  • How does the University encourage the promotion and research of regionally relevant languages, smaller state languages and minority languages?
  • What does the University do to promote language and cultural diversity as an asset?

Multilingual administrative and support structures

  • What foreign language and intercultural skills should the staff have who work in the central and service institutions at the University?
  • What languages should information and administrative documents be offered in?
  • What languages should student advisory services be offered in?
  • What role does multilingualism play in procurement processes?
  • Which structures provide support in the acquisition of international experts?
  • Which institutions have the expertise to offer language and intercultural workshops, courses, and continuing and further education?
  • How is the quality assured for these workshops, courses, and continuing and further education?
  • What mechanisms (e.g. career service, business incubators and start-ups) are used to transfer language, intercultural and international expertise to the professional and working world and society as a whole?

Inclusive, gender-neutral and non-discriminatory language

  • How is the University committed to and how does it position itself in the societal discourse on non-discriminatory language use?
  • How can awareness be raised for the use of inclusive, gender-neutral and non-discriminatory language that goes beyond established guidelines and the regular updates of these?
  • What support and advisory services does the University offer to particularly vulnerable students and employees?
  • How can non-discriminatory language be successfully promoted in the working world and society as a whole?
  • How does the University make language accessible for prospective students, students, employees and members of the public interested in information from the University (e.g. through the use of plain language, Braille or sign language)?

This final version of the questions was distributed to all of the partner universities, who were asked to answer them in regard to their particular university. To do so, it was decided that each university would appoint one person to be responsible for this task who was well networked and well informed about language and cultural activities at their university. This contact person was encouraged to gather information and feedback from others at their university (e.g. from quality management, rectors and presidents) in order to provide complete information. Within a period of approximately two months, the task was completed and the majority of the contact persons had returned their answers to the task force. The University of Bergen did not participate in the process as it would not be continuing with Arqus in the second phase, and one other university in the Alliance did not send their answers. Unfortunately, the timeline had to be adhered to as the language policy needed to be finished by the end of the first funding period. All of the answers were then compiled into one long file and analysed for recurring themes and important points and quotes. This process was completed manually by two members of the task force. A file with these recurring themes and import points and quotes was provided to all of the action line board members for review.

As an intermediate step, the task force also looked at the language policies individual universities in the Alliance already had in place (the Universities of Granada, Padua and Vilnius) and at recommended structures for language policies (EPICUR European Model Language Policy and the European Confederation of Language Centres in Higher Education (CercleS)). After examining these, an initial attempt was made to follow the recommendations made by CercleS for scaffolding a language policy. CercleS’s recommendations are very well thought out and researched, and many of their suggestions were incorporated. However, the task force found that it was not possible to structure the language policy based directly on CercleS’s recommendations as the data collected did not match one-to-one with the recommended structure. For example, Cercle’s recommended structure included sections on languages in research and languages in everyday life on campus, which were both topics that the questions distributed to the partner universities did not address. In addition, the structure proposed by CercleS covered detailed information on topics such as the specific entry and exit language level requirements and the language tests employed. The amount of information that Cercle’s structure required was not feasible for our particular situation and did not match our aims in terms of content and breadth. The goal from the beginning was to formulate a language policy that would be clear and concise and that would be a valuable resource for both language teachers and general academic staff.

It turned out that it was more natural to base the Arqus Language Policy on the original structure of our questions and the five main thematic areas they covered. The task force then used the five areas and the information from the recurring themes file to outline and, after a process of multiple drafts, to write each of the main sections of the language policy.

Finally, the introduction was drafted with a focus on including general information on the Alliance in the context of multilingualism and pluriculturalism as well as background information on language and culture as related to universities and multilingual universities. Here, existing verbiage on multilingualism from the Arqus Mission Statement and Joint Agreement on the Recognition of Certificates was also included.

The Action Line members had four weeks to provide feedback on the draft of the language policy, and the suggestions they provided were inserted into the draft as comments. At the Action Line 4 meeting during the Arqus 2.0 Forum in Granada in September 2022, the Board reviewed the suggestions together and decided whether or not to make the suggested changes. In many cases, new spontaneous changes were made and these were incorporated. There was some disagreement as Work Package 4.9 wanted to have an additional paragraph specifically about consistent terminology use and the Arqus terminological database. The task force and the leader of the action line did not want to incorporate specific actions and activities in the language policy as it was instead intended to be a document with general assumptions about language and language recommendations for the Alliance. In addition, no information had been collected or freely supplied on this topic during the data collection period and adding the paragraph would have changed the original structure. The language policy was then sent to the head of the Arqus Alliance for review. The final step will be for the language policy to be approved and accepted by the Rectors’ Council.

At the beginning of the process, Action Line 4 discussed the fact that there might be some difficulties in answering the questions but the process of going through the questions was recognised as a good way to identify potential problems. The information is qualitative and though much of it had to remain anecdotal, it allowed for a fuller picture of the situation at all of the partner universities, for example, their priorities and foci in the context of multilingualism and pluriculturalism.

Overall, the process of developing and writing a language policy was streamlined. There were, however, some limitations, with the primary limitation being time. An original timeline had been proposed in which the bulk of the work on the language policy would have taken place between February and November 2020. However, as this was at the height of the Covid-19 crisis, the language policy had to be postponed because other things needed to be given priority. In addition, the symposium on language policy, which had been planned for November 2020, was also postponed and held as part of the Linguistic, Educational and Intercultural Research conference in October 2021. The presentations and discussion at this conference served as the basis for the development of the questions. As a result, the work on the language policy was not able to be started until late in 2021. If there had been more time, it would have been possible for multiple individuals and offices from each university to answer the questions and/or for the answers to have been more extensive. In addition, the recurrent themes were analysed manually. A higher level of accuracy could have been achieved if qualitative software or a tagging system would have been used. In spite of these limitations, the Arqus Language Policy is a product that we hope will play a central role in guiding the Alliance in issues of multilingualism and pluriculturalism for the coming project periods.

4. Process of Drafting the Language Policy

One of the most crucial points of drafting the language policy was moving from the recurring themes to the outline and initial draft. An example of how the Task Force navigated this step can be seen in the first section of the language policy, which focuses on ensuring that students and graduates have the language and intercultural skills they need to succeed at all stages of their (academic) career. Some of the recurring themes identified in the answers from the partner universities were that a minimum language level should be required as part of the entrance requirements, language courses should be promoted, students and staff should be required to reach minimum proficiency levels appropriate for their field and graduates’ language proficiency should be recognised in some manner, for example, as a language diploma or certificate, or as a supplement on their diploma. A few quotes aptly convey this need to focus on language learning during the multiple stages of a student’s academic career. For example, the University of Lyon wrote, “Language learning is a dynamic process, so we should offer students the possibility to attend language programs (modules, seminars), according to the evolution of their needs.” With this comment, Lyon reminds us that learners’ needs do not remain the same throughout their academic career and professional life. And the University of Granada gives an example from the stage where students and doctoral researchers need to be prepared to participate in subject-specific discourses: “It depends on the [preparation] course but, generally speaking, we must assure that they have the necessary skills: in the discipline, the language and soft skills.” This quote shows the integral role language plays at this point. Finally, a quote from Vilnius exemplifies how graduates who have achieved high levels of language proficiency have an advantage on the job market:

Upon graduation, the graduate receives a diploma and a diploma supplement, which includes the level(s) of proficiency in the foreign language(s) at which the language programme was delivered, and the student is given a mark on a 10-point scale, with 10 indicating the highest evaluation. Employers indicate in job adverts and job descriptions the level of proficiency in the language(s) required for the job and the position to be filled.

There was a general consensus in the answers that universities need to look closely at this graduation stage and at each stage of the academic cycle and identify how language learning and intercultural skills can best be promoted at each. Lyon summarises this well in their position that universities should offer students “language courses and intercultural education all along their careers.” These statements and others along with the recurring themes in this section were the basis for the following passage in the language policy:

It is important to ensure that students and graduates have the language skills they need to succeed at all points of their academic career. And therefore it is essential to measure and assess language skills, offer high-quality language and intercultural education, and certify language and cultural skills.

A second example of this process is found in the fourth section of the language policy, which covers the importance of multilingual administrative and support structures. From the answers provided, it was clear that the majority of universities in the Alliance do indeed prioritise multilingual staff. This priority is already apparent in the recruitment and hiring process. Vilnius University, for instance, wrote:

Job descriptions include the national and one foreign language (usually English) required for the position. If there is a need for more than one foreign language, an additional requirement is added to the job description. If the job involves international activities, job adverts indicate the need for intercultural experience and competencies.

As indicated here, English is usually the first foreign language, but several positions at Vilnius University, and also at other universities in the Alliance, have an additional language requirement. Likewise, the University of Graz commented “English connects people internationally – even in the fields of research and teaching. At the University of Graz, 10 percent of teaching courses are already held in English.” Accordingly, Graz requires that academic staff have a B2 level and non-academic staff a B1 level in English. The latter is important in order that administrative support can be provided for staff teaching in English who do not speak German. This information collected led to the following statement in the language policy: “It is essential that administrative staff have appropriate foreign language and intercultural skills, and minimum proficiency levels should also be required here.”

In addition, all of the universities indicated that it is essential that information and administrative documents be available at least in the local language and English. However, the University of Granada also made the point that only those “documents with an international scope” need to be in English. Similarly, Vilnius University pointed out that it needs to be clear which documents and communication should be carried out in which language: “The draft of the Vilnius University Language Policy Guidelines stipulate that the official language of the University’s internal and external communication is Lithuanian, and the main language of international communication is English.” These and similar comments were the foundation for the following in the Arqus language policy: “Multilingual information, administrative documents, advisory services and procurement processes are essential as they make it possible to attract excellent international students and staff.”

Turning to support provided to students and staff, the language policy states “Staff who work in International Offices, for example, must have excellent foreign language skills in order to interact effectively with international students and staff”. Accordingly, the universities answering the questions stated that advisory services should be in the local/national language as well as in other languages used by the incoming international students. Regarding students, Graz stated, “The choice of languages depends on the countries from which incoming students come.” In many cases, it is important that administrative and support staff speak the same language as the international students. For example, Vilnius University takes the following stance: “Where possible, communication in students’ native languages is encouraged. Psychologists at Vilnius University Counselling and Training Centre provide emotional well-being counselling to students and employees in Lithuanian, English, Russian, German and Ukrainian.” And in cases where this is not possible, it is at least important that the support and written documents can be provided in English. The universities seem to be in consensus on this point of the importance of providing multilingual support to students and staff.

5. Conclusions and Implications

Language and culture in higher education play a fundamental role in the development of students’ academic lives. The promotion and protection of a Multilingual University in a local, European and global dimension will train students to become competent decision makers. This includes the commitment to European values such as respect, democracy and solidarity.

From the five thematic areas analysed for the development of the language policy, the following conclusions have been drawn:

The Arqus Alliance

  1. sees language and intercultural skills as indispensable assets for academic and professional success
  2. recognises that language skills and intercultural components are essential in providing high-quality language and content courses
  3. sets multilingualism and pluriculturalism as an important educational goal
  4. prioritises multilingual administrative and support structures as a way to foster quality education
  5. must use inclusive, gender-neutral and non-discriminatory language, informing and raising awareness for this topic

Arqus’ recognition and approval of the language policy will be a first step toward a more multilingual and plurilingual community. In the many activities Arqus will carry out in the future, the members should turn to these main conclusions as guiding principles. Multilingualism and pluriculturalism are not silos but are rather foundations that need to be considered and included on a regular basis. For example, in the second Arqus period, the objective is to make most of the Alliance’s events multilingual. Starting with the Arqus Annual Conference, the idea would be to give keynote speakers the option to speak in their native languages and then provide live subtitles. In addition, parallel sessions in different languages or extra sessions for language exchange could be offered in the afternoon. And apart from the conference, the aim is to provide all action lines with information and resources that they can use to plan their own multilingual events and meetings. To this end, the elaboration and development of this Language Policy is essential and forms the basis of a journey that has only just begun. Learning a foreign language opens our perspectives and gives us one more than one window to look at the world through. And in this current time, we can all benefit from being able to look at the world and the current situation from more than one window – and more than one perspective.

Multilingualism does not remain within the walls of the Arqus universities, but has a direct impact on society, for example, through mobility programmes, career services and third-mission activities. The Arqus Language policy will serve as a solid basis for these and the other activities of the Alliance. In addition, the language policy can serve as a model for other European alliances.

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