Could intensive language teaching centers support English as a medium of instruction in Algeria?

Abstract

Abstract: This study explores the necessity of establishing Algerian universities as professional entities that primarily use English across all departments. Despite these aspirations, Algerian universities face significant execution challenges. This research addresses the gap in existing literature regarding collaboration between English for Specific Purposes (ESP) practitioners and teachers from diverse fields.The importance of this work emanates from its intent of drawing attention to and comprehending the hurdles that non-English educators encounter while pursuing cross-field collaboration to learn English. Understanding the issues is critical to resolving them. Thus, the central focus of this study was to ascertain how ESP practitioners' perspectives and practices of collaboration compare to those of other teachers questing learning English; it centered on data pertaining to four key sub-aims: the extent of collaboration between ESP practitioners and nonEnglish teachers learning English; how these educators collaborate; constraints that hinder collaboration and web-based collaboration; and finally perception of the use of online collaborative tools for collaboration. To this end, 66 ESP teachers alongside teachers from other specialisations in their pursuit to learn English at Centre d’Enseignement Intensif des Langues (CEIL) in five Algerian universities completed a Google Form questionnaire. The results show that despite their positive attitudes toward collaboration, notably online collaboration, the majority do not practice it. Zoom, Google Meet, and social media are the most preferred platforms. However, obstacles like time and technical problems persist.