Bilingual teaching in business administrationMain challengesand possible solutions

Resumen

Current globalisation requires the increasing use of English as the common languagein the economic and business environment. Thus, the desire to internalise theUniversity and its students has appeared to enhance their professional and personalexpectations. Consequently, the Facultad de Ciencias de la Empresa at theUniversidad Politécnica de Cartagena has developed a bilingual education project forthe Degree in Business Administration, within the program of excellence CampusMare Nostrum.This project enables foreign students to improve their knowledge about the content ofthe degree and their Spanish as a second language, and for Spanish studentsadvance their specific knowledge and improve their English skills; generatingprofessionals and researchers with international projection.This bilingual education project has faced a number of challenges that we havestudied from three perspectives: institutional (for example, the absence of recognitionof the bilingual official degree), professors (the need of specific training), andstudents (English level demanded and higher commitment required).Similarly, theproject has also required some solutions which have been analysed in this paper,such as the introduction of CLIL methodology, linguists supporting or creating aspecific manual for professors and students: “English for Business Administration”.