Supporting Cadets to Develop Their English Reading Skills during the Covid-19 Pandemic at the “Nicolae Balcescu” Land Forces Academy of Sibiu

Abstract

The paper analyses the manner in which the developing of reading skills of the second year military students of the “Nicolae Balcescu” Land Forces Academy was done during the second semester of the academic year 2019-2020, when the COVID-19 Pandemic was declared and the cadets had to leave the Academy. We consider that English Language course taught during the second semester, a course meant to help students hone their reading skills and to acquire basic military vocabulary was a success. The Academy provided the laptops, the high quality platform and online support necessary for the online courses. There were also certain qualities of the cadets that played an important role in the very good results they obtained at the end of the online English Language course: their age, their discipline, the good command of technical skills and particularly their motivation; all of them being aware that “since the end of the Cold War, foreign language training—especially the learning of English, the de facto operational language―has become increasingly important within armed forces. This is especially the case at NATO due to an ever-increasing number of peace-support operations, on the one hand, and the Alliance's enlargement and partnership activities, on the other. Language skills—in both Allied and Partner countries—are primarily a national responsibility. However, language training must be of concern to NATO as a whole since linguistic interoperability is as important to ensuring that countries are able to participate effectively in both NATO missions and wider Alliance activities as any other form of interoperability”. [1]