This study reports part of the initial findings of my PhD research project, the primary objective of which is to explore lecturers’ and students’ perceptions towards their English abilities and practices in English-medium instruction universities located in two provinces of Turkey. This paper only reports the perceptions obtained from the lecturers based on the following themes: their personal and language background, views on their own and students’ English proficiency, and finally on their language use particularly in academic contexts. The participants include a small number of lecturers based in the following universities: Boğaziçi, Fatih and Middle East Technical Universities. The participants are from the faculties of Economic and Administrative Sciences, and Engineering. The data were collected through online questionnaires. The findings revealed that overall they held a positive view of their English skills, and attached more importance to being intelligible users, though their goals slightly differed for speaking and writing.