Empowering International Education: Online EMI Teacher Training Programme

19 December 2025

On November 14, 2025, 30 teachers participating in the Online EMI Teacher Training Programme jointly embarked on a five-week systematic online training journey in front of the screen.


Commissioned by the Association for Education and Technology (AET), the programme was delivered by the teacher training team from the Centre for English Language Education (CELE) at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. Through 16 intensive online sessions, the programme enhanced teachers' proficiency in English-medium instruction, fostering confidence and excellence in the bilingual classroom.

The course content covered key modules of EMI teaching, including theoretical foundations, teaching strategies, classroom management, cross-cultural competence, and feedback & assessment. The training team focused on themes such as "Philosophy and principles of EMI teaching", "Language Awareness", "Reflective Teaching", "Differentiating Learning", and "Motivating and supporting learners", they progressively constructed a comprehensive EMI teaching capacity system.

The online courses were not only about knowledge transmission but also practical method drills. In the Feedback section of the demo lessons, trainees applied the learned theories to real teaching practices and continuously optimized their teaching strategies through targeted comments from mentors.

The feedback has given me a more concrete understanding of 'how to teach professional courses well in English'. It turns out that EMI is not just a language conversion but a transformation of teaching thinking.

One participating teacher

EMI full-English teaching is a crucial pathway for the internationalization of higher education. Though the five-week training was short, the seeds of change have been quietly sown. In future classrooms, participating teachers will translate what they have learned into actions, illuminating more students' professional learning journeys with English.