Students of Today Changing English Language Studies of Yesterday

Abstract

In recent times, concern has been expressed as to whether English Language Studies are in tune with the wider social, political, technological and economic trends, and the latest developments in applied linguistics and English language education. In line with these views, the aim of this study is to explore – by means of interviews with 25 English majors from the University of Rijeka – the students’ expectations with respect to the skills and competencies (to be) developed in their course of English studies, their relevance to the job market, as well as the teaching approaches and methods used to reach these learning outcomes. By comparing and contrasting the emerging educational trends triggered by the Bologna Process with primary data collected in our interviews, we focus on the implications that our results might have in terms of introducing changes to traditional English Language Studies educational paradigms.

Keywords

• English Language Studies (ELS)
• Bologna Process
• learning outcomes
• job market
• curriculum development