Multilingualism rather than English-only: policy and practice in classical music higher education

The rise of English-medium education in (European) higher education has attracted considerable attention, but most analyses of the topic to date have been conducted in traditional universities. Highly international fields such as that of classical music higher education (CMHE) remain under-researched. Dafouz, E., and U. Smit. 2016. “Towards a Dynamic Conceptual Framework for English Medium Education in Multilingual University Settings.” Applied Linguistics 37 (3): 397–415 and Dafouz, E., and U. Smit. 2020. ROAD-MAPPING English Medium Education in the Internationalised University. Palgrave Macmillan. The ROAD-MAPPING framework provides an analytical tool for examining such complex contexts and unpacking the various factors at play in these multilingual university settings. In this paper, we present a mixed-methods case study at one of Austria’s largest state-funded music universities, comprising a policy analysis, a survey and semi-structured interviews with students, teachers and management. Using the ROAD-MAPPING framework to guide our analysis, we found that university policy and reported practice were coherent among all groups, with German as the default medium of education. English is explicitly designated the second academic language, while multilingualism and multimodality are actively promoted as a means of achieving educational and professional goals. However, we also noted that many strategies for coping with these multilingual teaching and learning contexts seem to be rather ad hoc, suggesting that there is a need for more awareness of multilingual pedagogy, and confirming the value of the ROAD-MAPPING framework for examining such complex settings.