Introduction

In this chapter we will outline some of the key themes in the book: Globalization and Internationalization of HE; the linguistic spread of English and EMI; the importance of cultural empathy; the role of personality. The chapter outlines the contexts of the data: of native speaking professors and foreign professors in Korea; non-native English-speaking staff working in the UK and teaching their subjects in the English language; and native speaking English individuals teaching their subjects in other languages—the languages of the country in which they were teaching (Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, Catalan, Italian, French). We first outline the different chapters of the book and their focus and then we outline some of the literature and current research in key areas that impact upon the work of IAS. For example, how Globalization and Internationalization of HE has developed and what its impact is and the linguistic spread of English and English medium instruction (EMI). We also consider the importance of cultural empathy and the key role played by personality in the work of IAS. Finally we include a note on the methodology we adopted and also a note on some of the terminology we use, as well as discussing the generalizability of the data and arguing for its applicability to wider contexts.