ABSTRACT
In the context of higher education internationalization, English can be a burden to scholars. It can easily become a tool of colonization of mouths and minds. In Brazilian higher education, attempts to use English as a medium of instruction have just started, but they are already creating feelings of inadequacy and constructing troubled professional identities among scholars who feel compelled to teach in English for the sake of internationalization. This chapter explores alternatives to mainstream approaches to English in higher education, especially in the context of internationalization practices. The chapter examines how a decolonization process took place in four institutional practices geared toward university research professors of different knowledge areas. The first aimed to tackle Brazilian professors’ linguistic identity constructions, perceptions, and feelings using English to teach Brazilian students; the second was the creation of an Academic Writing Center to help Brazilian professors write in English; and the third was an EMI transversal postgraduate course to aid professors improve their writing skills in English, thus allegedly facilitating publication in international journals. Such initiatives, briefly investigated in this chapter, are analyzed from a decolonizing discursive perspective based on our local perception of how ELF contemporary studies can contribute to internationalization.
