Language Centres at a Crossroads

The 21st century is the time of unprecedented speed of social and technological development and change. It is also the time of globalized and internationally interconnected world pregnant with information, dynamics of events, and individual choice. These attributes create a highly complex, unpredictable, ambiguous, and volatile environment putting new demands on every adult individual to continue in their efforts to educate, requalify and upskill during the course of their whole life. Developing autonomy, willingness and ability for life-long learning within the boundaries of individual school subjects, therefore, represents one of the main objectives and challenges of the current educational system and its policies set on the institutional levels. At the same time, it has also been part of both national and international strategies defined for the field of education.

The presented language course model responds to these needs by constructing its content to develop student autonomy in language learning through a combination of topics, tasks and activities with a high degree of student involvement. Based on student needs analysis studies conducted institutionally in 2006 and replicated in 2013 and 2016, as well as on a research run between 2017 and 2020 in cooperation with higher education institutions on an international level, a set of business English courses applied at the ŠKODA AUTO University was designed. The courses aim at teaching the students language through content and skill training, while developing their individual responsibility and self-direction. The CLIL approach is adopted to choosing the course topics and outline. In-class activities as well as student home preparation aim at the main competence development evenly distributed between reading, writing, listening, and speaking tasks. Teaching methods cover both individual work and peer cooperation. Course requirements, finally, provide students with a high degree of freedom when making decisions about the content of their projects later shared with their peers through class debates and presentations. As such, this concept helps students find the area of their self-realization which boosts their motivation, willingness, and ability to continue and self-direct their further learning within a wide scope of professional and social contexts reflecting the conditions of the 21st century society and job market.

Rozvoj dovedností 21. v souladu s požadavky pracovního trhu je otázkou synergie mezi úrovní státu, vzdělávacích institucí i individuálního přístupu studentů. Ve vzdělávací praxi terciálního sektoru je otázkou nejen přímé výuky a kontaktu se studenty, ale klíčová je i tvorba kurikul a školních programů. Předložený příspěvek představuje model pro výuku cizích jazyků na terciální úrovni podložený výsledky výzkumu potřeb na všech úrovních jazykového managementu, který vychází z výzkumných projektů ŠKODA AUTO Vysoké školy realizovaných v letech 2006, 2013, 2016 a mezi roky 2017-2020. Na mikro úrovni jsou popsány potřeby z hlediska studentů, na mezzo úrovni proběhla výzkumná sonda na mezi institucemi a firmami a na makro úrovni vznikla studie v rámci univerzitní mezinárodní spolupráce. Výsledkem je úprava školních programů pro jazykové vzdělávání, včetně metod implementujících přístup CLIL tak, aby u studentů kromě jazykových dovedností byly rozvíjeny i dovednosti komunikační a interakční, společně s autonomií vedoucí k celoživotnímu vzdělávání.

References:

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Dagmar Sieglová completed her graduate degree in intercultural communication at the Graduate School of Education at University of Pennsylvania, US and her doctoral degree in applied linguistics at the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. She currently works as an assistant professor at the Škoda Auto University in Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic. She teaches English for professional purposes, diversity management, and intercultural marketing. She specializes in teaching methodologies.

Lenka Stejskalová received her master's degree from the Faculty of Science at the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, completed her studies of teaching general education subjects at the Faculty of Education at the Charles University of Prague, Czech Republic, and gained her MBA from the Institute of Industrial and Financial Management, Prague, Czech Republic. She also owns the Teaching English for Business Certificate from IH in London. Besides English (BE, EAP), she teaches Management while applying the CLIL approach. She is the institution Vice-Rector for International Relations, and worked for 20 years as a head of the Department of Languages and Intercultural Competences. In 2018, she became the Cambridge Examiner for FCE and CAE oral exams. As an EN C1 courses supervisor, she is responsible for methodology and curricula development.