Introducing bilingual teaching in business administrationmain challenges and possible solutions

Resumen

Current globalisation requires the increasing use of English as the common language inthe economic and business environment. Thus, the desire to internalise the universityand its students has appeared to enhance their professional and personal expectations.Consequently, the Faculty of Business at the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena hasdeveloped a bilingual education project for the Degree in Business Administration,within the program of excellence Campus Mare Nostrum.This project enables the internationalisation of this degree because foreign studentscan improve their knowledge about business administration and their Spanish as asecond language, and Spanish students can advance their specific knowledge andenhance their English skills; projecting professionals and researchers.This bilingual education project has faced a number of challenges that we have studiedfrom three perspectives: the institution (for example, the absence of recognition of thebilingual official degree), the professors (the need of specific training), and the students(English level demanded and higher commitment required). Similarly, the project hasalso required some solutions which have been analysed in this paper, such as theintroduction of CLIL methodology, linguists supporting or the creation of a specificmanual for professors and students: “English for Business Administration”.