Welcome to the ninth edition of the Ezner podcast on European Higher Education Policy.

Today we're talking to Annetta de Kraut. She is a psycholinguist and professor at the University of Amsterdam.

As more and more students go abroad to study and European universities compete to attract students from all over the world,

more and more degree

courses are being taught in English. This shift towards English has reached the point that native

speakers now fear the disappearance of their own language. Mrs. Ghejof, you call this anglicization,

and in your valedictory lecture you warn about its negative consequences. Is this really such a problem?

It has been around for a long time, but it's increasing rapidly. It's accelerating. So much so

that as I speak, 70% of all master programs are in English, and about 20% of our bachelor programs are in English.

And the tendency is to also turn the remaining Dutch bachelor programs into English ones.

And I really oppose to that.

The process is accelerating.

And that's why right now it draws the attention of many people, of the general

audience, but also politicians. And the problem is that if one program in the Netherlands

at one university is turned into English only, the other universities also provide them in English

rather than Dutch. I think that's the main

underlying reason why this process is accelerating. What exactly happens when you teach or learn

in a different language to your own? You talk about language loss. I have three main arguments.

The first is that there is this relatively poor ability

to express oneself in the language that is weaker. And for 80% of our student population,

English is the weaker language. They have relatively good abilities in English, but it's obviously

of lower quality than the Dutch.

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