Deadline for applications extended to 15 October 2018
Eligible Higher Education institutions in the UK willing to offer an integrated and customised English proficiency enhancement programme for Brazilian academics. Institutions with experience in offering English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses – online and remotely.
The project aims to connect suitable UK Higher Education institutions willing to offer an integrated, customised English proficiency enhancement programme for Brazilian academics, a key component in the Brazilian HEI “at home” internationalisation initiative devised to encourage excellence among 40 universities (mostly federal, except for two São Paulo state universities and a small number of pontifical universities). With a substantial higher education and research sector with over 8 million under-graduate and 220 thousand post-graduate students, Brazil is developing an ´internationalisation at home´ agenda - including the internationalisation of the HEI curricula - encouraging renowned universities to deepen their international engagement thus foster international strategies and partnerships with key countries.
The chosen UK University is expected to provide distance learning EAP programmes for academics; the British Council on its part will deliver its Researcher Connect and Academic Teaching Excellence workshops. The total number of hours, as well as the course timeframe strongly depend on institutions’ course proposals, we would advise the course - ideally targeted at B1 candidates (A2 at the lowest) Brazilian University professors willing to start or improve their general English and/or English as a Medium of Instruction proficiency - should offer a total of 200 hours of study (equivalent to one CEFR level; e.g. from A2 to B1 or from B1 to B2), over a year. Candidates’ proficiency will be tested beforehand and after the conclusion of the course, through APTIS. According to results of this first call of interest, a procurement process will be carried out and a partnership closed with at least one UK University. This integrated package is expected to be offered to other suitable Brazilian Universities interested in improving their academic staff’s English language proficiency as part of their “internationalisation at home” agenda. Likewise, after assessment of the impact of this pilot, there will be potential to deploy to other countries in the region first, and any other non-English speaking country afterwards. CAPES-PrInt study on Higher Education and Student Mobility
Institutions must provide a detailed description of their training package, resources and related costs by Monday 15 October 2018 to cintia.goncalves@britishcouncil.org.br and mirian.navarro@britishcouncil.org.br.