The Future of Education

This paper presents some results of a Teaching Innovation Project based at the University of Navarra. In this project, teachers of both the Language Institute and the School of Management Assistants (ISSA) have come together to share ideas and strategies geared at fostering communication skills on the part of the students, who will likely conduct their professional work in the business world. The starting point was a need, identified across departments (Spanish and English Business Communication, Second Foreign Languages – French or German), for these undergraduate students to be able to handle appropriately formal registers when communicating in public. Teachers within their own particular area had previously undertaken efforts to that effect, however failing to offer a shared set of objectives that might facilitate teaching and learning experiences as perceived with both common activities and common goals. Led by an expert in CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), a native speaker of English who has been working in Higher Education for over 35 years, this project brings together a team of six members (two German teachers, two English teachers, one French teacher and one Spanish teacher). A formal, unified, multi-pronged approach identified several lacunae and digital platforms allowed for the productive exchange of ideas among teachers and students. Channelling, thus, communicative activities with key strategic methods and reusable content enabled the faculty to assess students’ needs in a more comprehensive manner. An online bank of material on speaking skills has been set up and is functionally operative, shedding light on activities that have been successful (or not) in the classroom to date. This ongoing project will continue into a second academic year, focusing instead on the quality of the students’ written discourse. 

Keywords: Oral discourse; strategies; business; language for specific purposes; tools; community-building.

References:

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