engleski

Academic English in Sciences and Humanities after Seven Years of Bologna at the University of Zagreb

Since 2005, Croatia has been a full participating member of the Bologna process. This reform of university level education was introduced quickly and without sufficient public debate, failing to solve some important issues which are now proving to be of great importance. Professional language teaching at non-philological faculties has found itself in a particularly difficult situation due to the reduction in number of lessons taught per semester and per year, a small number of ECTS credits, making the subject seem insignificant, as well as due to the decline in general knowledge of our students. A great problem is also the difficult social and professional situation of many language teachers. The position of language for academic purposes at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, which is the alma mater of all language teachers, is significantly different – the duration of instruction is longer, the number of ECTS credits is bigger, the groups are smaller and the teaching staff is more numerous. In addition, the initial level of knowledge of the students at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences is higher, which facilitates teaching and learning and greatly adds to the learning outcome. The fact that most language courses are taught at the first year (and during the first semester) represents an additional problem because the students are still unfamiliar with their chosen profession and its professional language in their mother tongue. The aim of this paper is to show the differences in the status of the foreign language at academic level at different types of faculties, both philological and non-philological.

Academic language teaching; Bologna process; humanities and social sciences; non-philological faculties

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