Language Centres at a Crossroads

Currently, the Tampere University Language Centre is in the process of extensive curriculum revision, as are the rest of the faculties. One guiding factor in the revision of the language and communication course provision is the modifying trend in acquisition of language and communication skills, which are not bound to the classroom anymore. Hence, one major aim of the language centre is the provision of more flexible and blended language and communication courses to serve the multidisciplinary requirements of the degree programs, as well as the needs of individual learners.

This presentation is an introduction of an online, integrated academic writing in English course, which has been designed for bachelor's degree students of Bioengineering at Tampere University. This particular writing course is integrated with a subject course on Tissue Engineering. The presentation aims to highlight the need and importance of such an integrated course or study opportunity for our learners in increasingly tight study schedules. Thus, this type of teaching/learning implementation is a clear demonstration of applying multifaceted pedagogical approaches to serve several purposes at once, such as completing two courses simultaneously and receiving invaluable support from both the language teacher and the subject teacher, producing one common writing task for both courses, as well as gaining study credits for both of them.

Hence, the presentation will introduce the details of the course structure and organization, the course task and material provision on the Moodle online platform, language and subject teacher collaboration strategies, course content integration and implementation. In addition, the presentation covers the assessment methods and overall results based on continuous learner and teacher reflection. The focus will especially be on the feedback received from the previous years' implementations, which has served as the basis for development, particularly on the level of integration, instructions and online facilitation.

Opetussuunnitelmatyö ja kasvava tarve joustavampaan kieli- ja viestintä opetukseen kannustaa Tampereen yliopiston Kielikeskusta tarjoamaan yhä enemmän monimuoto- ja verkko-opetusta.
Tämä esitelmä esittelee integroidun verkkokurssin "Akateeminen kirjoittaminen englanniksi", joka on suunnattu Tampereen yliopiston biotekniikan opiskelijoille. Esityksessä käydään läpi kurssin rakennetta ja järjestämistä, kurssitehtävää ja materiaaleja Moodle verkkoalustalla, kielten ja aineen opettajien yhteistyötä, sekä kurssisisällön integrointia ja toteutusta. Lisäksi esitelmä kattaa kurssin arviointimenetelmät ja yleiset tulokset perustuen jatkuvaan oppijoiden- ja opettajien reflektioon.

References:

• Morgato, M., et al. (2015) CLIL Training guide: Creating a CLIL learning Community in Higher Education, ReCLes.pt
• Salmon, G. (2005) The Five stage Model [online] Available from: http://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html (Accessed: 10.1.20) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
• Tampere University Language Centre staff development meeting memos and resources
• Robin Goodfellow & Mary R. Lea (2005) Supporting writing for assessment in online learning, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 30:3, 261-271, DOI: 10.1080/02602930500063835 (Accessed: 10.1.20)

Mrs. Minasyan holds a Master's degree in English and Italian languages, as well as in 'Education and Globalisation'. Currently, Mrs. Minasyan's research interests lie in content and language integrated teaching/learning (CLIL) methods in higher education. She has also been involved in a number of curriculum revision projects. Since 2017, Mrs. Minasyan has worked at the Language Centre of the University of Tampere as a teacher of English. Currently, she teaches academic writing to engineering students at bachelor's level. Prior to joining the Language Centre team in Tampere, Mrs. Minasyan had worked at the University of Oulu as an English teacher for 9 years.

Ms. Merta has a degree in English Language and Literature, with the addition of pedagogy, Swedish and Spanish. Her Master's Thesis focused on the use and attitudes of English as a Lingua Franca in the working life of Finnish engineers. Since 2016, Ms. Merta has worked in Finnish higher education in various universities. She has also gained some experience in teaching in the private sector when instructing workers of a multinational construction company. From 2017 she has been teaching academic writing, and spoken and written communication to engineering students at the Language Centre of Tampere University.