The paper reports on the quantitative data resulting from the questionnaires designed by the authors (language for specific purposes instructors) addressing both graduate students’ range of abilities, skills and competences and tourism employers’ expectations. Language proficiency and communicative competence (understood as specific purpose language ability) are discussed as indicative of graduate students’ rate of employment in their field of studies. The authors choose tourism graduate students as the focus group in their investigation of the possible factors impacting market employability and influencing the degree of socio-professional integration in Cluj county.
The Covid-19 pandemic pushed the limits and limitations of all educational systems, teachers and students around the world. The solution adopted – distance, online teaching, learning and assessment – has proven to be of a longer duration than initially anticipated, to the frustration of students, parents, and teachers alike. Nonetheless, following a careful analysis of these processes over the last (two) semesters, surprising findings point out to the fact that the digital experience has brought forth, at least at the higher-education level, substantial positive outcomes that cannot be neglected. It has strengthened the digital skills that both students and teachers will need in a technology dominated future and has made the actors of the educational process aware of the constant need for an innovative look and creative approach toward sharing and assimilating the impressive amount of knowledge existent nowadays. The present article aims at discovering both the strengths and the weaknesses, the motivational factors and the technical difficulties that have characterized the recent online educational process; it also inquires to what extent this type of learning will be an integral part of our daily lives in the academia, once the on-site courses will be resumed.
The paper investigates the correlation between the mechanisms of curricular planning and design on the one hand and students' expectations from the language instructional process, on the other hand. The authors discuss the issues of decisional autonomy and accountability in relation to the principles of institutional language policies (at Babeș-Bolyai University), as well as to the intended learning outcomes formulated in the syllabi of English for Tourism delivered at the Faculty of Geography and the Faculty of History and Philosophy (both at B.A. and M.A. levels). The present study additionally measures students' expectations regarding the role and impact that university language instruction could have on their future socio-professional integration.
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