What do we Teach These Days?

Abstract

As professors of foreign languages, namely English, French and Romanian for Special Purposes, we have always faced the challenge of finding the right balance between teaching language-related skills, such as reading, listening, writing or speaking, grammar or specialized vocabulary and teaching students more than just language. A big part of nowadays students' lack of motivation in studying languages formally, i.e. in school, seems to derive from their perception of content inadequacy. In changing times, in a changing world, in which we start learning languages, especially English, virtually from our birth, informally, from various media, especially from the Internet and a variety of smart phone applications, it is quite difficult for a teacher/professor to demonstrate the necessity of learning a foreign language in school, moreover at an academic level. In this preliminary research project, we tried to find out what our students think they need to study in a class of foreign languages, in order to feel more motivated. Our aim is to find enough data to justify further research of this issue, which will eventually trigger a curriculum change at least at the level of our institution, i.e. department.