NTNU and UNSW Advance International EMI Teacher Training
National Taiwan Normal University's Resource Center for EMI (RCEMI) has successfully concluded a milestone in its endeavors: an international faculty development program in partnership with the University of New South Wales (UNSW), deepening cooperation between the two institutions in English-Medium Instruction teacher training and pedagogical research. Participants from across Taiwan’s field of higher education came together for a two-week intensive course held in Sydney, Australia beginning on February 1, 2026.
The program was jointly led by NTNU Distinguished Professor Tzu-Bin Lin, who also currently serves as CEO of the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) as well as Ya-Chu Fan, Associate Executive Officer of RCEMI. Their co-leadership reflected the program's dual emphasis on practical teaching development and longer-term research focus.
Integrating Teaching and Research
The curriculum takes into account both international best practices and the realities of Taiwan's higher education. Core elements included EMI course design, the integration of artificial intelligence in teaching, and the framework of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) which creates flexible learning environments that accommodate diverse student needs. Participants were guided to approach curriculum planning through an evidence-based lens, examining how learning objectives, classroom activities, and assessment design align.
A program highlight was a lecture by Professor Alex J. Bowers of Teachers College, Columbia University, who shared his latest research on data analytics in educational leadership. Drawing on the convergence of evidence-based improvement cycles and data science, Bowers demonstrated practical applications of open educational data and visualization tools. Participants gained a concrete research approach to systematically examine EMI teaching practice.
As mentioned earlier, the program deliberately pairs teaching design with teaching research. Mei-Hui Liu, CEO of RCEMI explained the dual goals of improving teaching methods on one hand, and helping faculty identify classroom problems, gather evidence, and generate actionable research outcomes on the other. This approach, she noted, makes pedagogical improvement trackable and verifiable, and creates a foundation for cross-institutional knowledge sharing.
Through case discussions, peer feedback sessions, and hands-on tasks, participants are encouraged to identify key constraints and workable strategies within their own teaching contexts. The expectation is that faculty will return to their home institutions and translate the course plans and research ideas developed in Sydney into concrete classroom practice and publishable findings.
13 Universities, 14 Disciplines
The program attracted faculty from 13 public and private universities across Taiwan, including National Taiwan University, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, National Chung Cheng University, Kaohsiung Medical University, and National Dong Hwa University, among others. Participants' disciplinary backgrounds spanned an unusually broad range: teacher education, competitive sports, translation, visual communication design, mechanical engineering, agricultural economics, biotechnology, information technology, statistics, nursing, business management, mass communication, foreign languages, and healthcare management. This diversity was itself a feature of the program, reflecting the wide spectrum of fields in which EMI is being adopted across Taiwan.
Faculty responses at the program's close were consistently positive. Participants described the most immediate value of the training as its direct transferability. Several noted that the opportunity to exchange ideas with UNSW faculty and engage in professional dialogue with an international team of scholars was a primary motivation for their involvement. Others shared that observing how UNSW instructors approached faculty development prompted reflection on their own training practices. Multiple participants reported that the program had reshaped how they think about EMI teaching through UDL. They also gained more confidence in using tools such as Pear Deck, alternative assessment formats, and generative AI for courses where a major redesign is not immediately feasible.
Taken together, the Sydney program marks a significant step in NTNU's effort to build a research-grounded, internationally connected community of EMI educators both at NTNU and across Taiwan's entire higher education landscape.