Attracting the best candidates online for job vacancies has become a challenging task for companies. One thing that could influence the attractiveness of organisations for employees is their reputation that is an essential component of marketing research and plays a crucial role in customer and employee acquisition and retention. Prior research has shown the importance for companies to improve their corporate reputation (CR) for its effect on attracting the best candidates for job vacancies. Company ratings and vacancy advertisements are nowadays a massive, rich valued, online data source for forming opinions regarding corporations. This study focuses on the effect of CR cues that are present in the description of online vacancies on vacancy attractiveness. Our findings show that departments that are responsible for writing vacancy descriptions are recommended to include the CR themes citizenship, leadership, innovation, and governance and to exclude performance. This will increase vacancies’ attractiveness which helps prevent labour shortage.
In response to globalisation and internationalisation of both higher education and the job market, The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS) has seen a considerable increase in English-medium courses, i.e. non-language subjects taught through English. Internationally, the rise of English-medium instruction (EMI) has led to research on, and discussion about the possible side-effects of a change in instructional language. More specifically, whether using a foreign language as the medium of instruction has a negative impact on teaching and learning. This paper reports the findings of a pilot research project into the implications of English-medium instruction (EMI) as perceived by students and teachers of the bachelor program Commercial Economics at the Faculty of Business, Finance and Administration at THUAS. Research methods used to collect data include face-to-face interviews with both students and lecturers involved in EMI subject courses, a student questionnaire, and lesson observations. Despite regular exposure to English and an adequate self-perceived English proficiency, results show that a considerable number of students, as well as teaching staff are experiencing difficulties with English-medium instruction and that for many EMI is not as efficient in transferring academic content as instruction in the mother tongue.
In CLIL contexts in the Netherlands, learners use the target language meaningfully in subject lessons parallel to English classes and English teachers are expected to co-operate with subject teacher colleagues. What does this mean for content and language in English lessons and for English teachers’ pedagogical and collaborative practices? For example, it has been suggested that Teachers of English in Bilingual streams (TEBs) may need to use different language teaching methodologies to mainstream English teachers. Coyle, Hood and Marsh (2010) suggest “the language needed in CLIL settings does not necessarily follow the same grammatical progression one would find in a language-learning setting.”(Coyle et al, 2010: 35) and that this has consequences for language teachers’ approaches to planning for CLIL learners; “It is not built on a grammatical model where progression focuses on a gradation of grammatical concepts, but incorporates grammatical progression from different perspectives.” (2010: 59)To explore the challenges facing TEBs, Dale, Oostdam and Verspoor (2017) reviewed the literature on language teachers in various forms of bilingual education. They found the literature referred to a wide variety and range of types and aspects of language, types of content, theories informing LTs’ pedagogical practices and issues for LTs’ collaborative practices. Even though there were no one-fits-all approaches to be found, a framework of possible choices to be made emerged. The framework presents a landscape for TEBs in four quadrants, based on the literature.This presentation will discuss this framework in the light of a subsequent qualitative study exploring idealisations of TEBs’ pedagogical and collaborative practices in the Netherlands. Focus group discussions were held with stakeholders in bilingual streams. These included members of quality assurance panels responsible for certification of bilingual schools, practising TEBs and subject teachers. On the basis of inductive and deductive analysis of the focus group transcripts, we will discuss the extent to which stakeholders’ ideals for TEBs reflect the literature. Coyle, D., Hood, P., & Marsh, D. (2010). Content and language integrated learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Dale,L. Oostdam, R., & Verspoor, L. (2017, submitted) Searching for Identity and Focus: Towards an analytical framework for language teachers in bilingual education Manuscript in preparation
