Innovation in Language Learning

The invention of e-mail and satellite links has undoubtedly limited the amount of time that today’s business people spend on the move. In order to reduce costs and improve the flow of information within the particular departments of multinationals, entrepreneurs have decided to take advantage of teleconferencing and videoconferencing as the best way of information exchange that is becoming more and more usual due to its speed and efficiency. The parallel phenomenon connected with it is the growth of English as an international language. As a result, business associates all over the world have to spend much time learning it. Actually, their command of English is already fairly good after graduation, but it turns out to be insufficient as far as its practical use is concerned. Most graduate trainees represent a relatively good level of English grammar, a very good knowledge of English vocabulary connected with their professions and quite good listening comprehension. The latter seems to be most fruitful, however this ability does not make them feel free of stress while attending their first face-to-face international meetings and teleconferences.

This paper presents teaching methods applied during English classes whose aim is to prepare IT specialists from Quality and Data Production Departments for participation in teleconferences. Teachers are supposed to become acqainted with both specialist terminology and business jargon used by the employees as well as get to know their corporate culture. They should also be good observers and excellent mind readers. They are expected to be trustworthy passive participants of real teleconferences in order to be able to arrange teleconference simulations during English lessons. Students mainly focus on improving their speaking skills in order to make communication smoother and clearer. In the meantime they gain more confidence and openness, which leads to improved teamwork.

To sum up, the presented customised teaching service requires a lot of commitment, self-development, individual approach and readiness to provide not only linguistic but also psychological support to students. The conclusion is that the range of a teacher’s work has been greatly extended. A teacher has started to play a complex role of a consultant, a mentor, a proofreader, a communication mistake detector and a psychoanalyst.