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Implementation of undergraduate classes in English, in a Brazilian federal university
The Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV) is a multi-campuses Brazilian federal university with approximately 20,000 students. The university is well known for its excellence in Agricultural Sciences, but has become a comprehensive university in the last decades.In 2013, UFV decided that one its priorities regarding internationalization was the implementation of classes in English, especially at the undergraduate level. The goals of this initiative are twofold: allow our students to have an experience with classes in English at home, preparing them for future experiences abroad; and to attract more international students.
A key action to achieve these goals was an intensive training offered to UFV faculty members to increase their abilities to teach in English. This training was offered in July 2014. In August 2014, the first undergraduate classes in English were offered to UFV students.
In this presentation, we will discuss how we prepared the training for UFV faculty; how we got funds for this training; what was our strategies to choose the courses that would be taught in English; what were the difficulties and the outcomes during the first year of this initiative. We believe that our experience can serve as a starting point to other universities, especially universities with a profile similar to ours.
Author(s):
Vladimir Di Iorio
Universidade Federal de Viçosa
Brazil