Expatriates in higher education: Paths to teaching in the local language

As a consequence of the Bologna Declaration, many European universities outside of Great Britain have instituted English-language Masters programs, enabling them to recruit not only students but also faculty on a global market. New hires for tenure-track positions therefore often do not speak the local language. They join research groups whose working language is English, and teach courses in English-language Masters programs. However, many of them are still expected to learn the local language in order to be able to teach courses also at Bachelors level.

At the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, there is a widespread assumption that two years should be enough time to allow new expatriate tenure-track faculty members to learn enough Swedish to be able to use the language for teaching. These two years coincide with the time they should be establishing their academic careers, publishing prolifically and developing their teaching skills. There is little evidence that any expatriate teachers are actually succeeding with the task of becoming proficient enough to teach in Swedish in the stipulated time period.

This paper presents results from a survey of expatriate faculty hired between 2013 and 2016. Faculty were asked about what was expected of them in terms of teaching in Swedish, what support their departments provide to those ends, and their own ambitions and strategies for learning the language. The results are used to frame a proposal for a new university policy for support to expatriate faculty on their way to mastery of the local language.