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ABSTRACT
In the Basque Autonomous Community, besides the official languages Spanish and Basque, English is considered an important third language for internationally operating companies. However, employees are not believed to be linguistically well enough prepared, due to shortcomings in English language learning in the Basque educational system. The introduction of English Medium Instruction (EMI) might improve the situation. Therefore, this study aims to analyse the relation between the experience of future professionals with EMI at one point in their educational career and their experience as language learners, their self-reported proficiency and competencies in English, the exposure to English in their daily lives, and their expectations about English in their future workplace. A quantitative approach was adopted, by means of questionnaires among 194 students of Business Administration at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). The data reveal that students who have taken EMI classes report higher skills in English (especially in oral skills and at higher level tasks), have generally more exposure to English and would feel more comfortable using English in their future job. The results suggest that EMI might help to prepare the future professionals linguistically better in this third language.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Adapted from the ALTE project (ALTE, Citation2002) where all levels of the CEFR framework from A1 to C2 were converted into business-related competences for three groups of skills.