Faculty Of Informatics And Management Research Articles

Tourism and management study programme through blended learning: development and results

This paper introduces and discusses a tourism and management study programme at the Faculty of Informatics and Management (FIM), University of Hradec Králové. It begins with description of the programme, along with a summary of its history and is considered in the light of changes in accreditation requirements. Students′ interest in the programme and foreign language skills gradually waned over a period of time. The number of students taking the state exams in foreign languages and their grades were used as indicators of students′ interest. We adopted blended learning but this did not increase interest in studying foreign languages. The blended learning model and its results in the Czech context are discussed with reference to experiences gained by others from around the world. We aim to verify whether changes to the learning content covering theory and practice enhance the quality and attractiveness of the tourism and management study programme.

Mobile Devices in Technical and Engineering Education with Focus on ESP

Mobile devices have become widely accepted and exploited didactic means on all levels of education and in all subjects to appropriate extent, including foreign languages. This study focuses on their use within technical (i.e. bachelor) and engineering (i.e. master) higher education in Informatics and Management study programmes at the Faculty of Informatics and Management (FIM), University of Hradec Kralove (UHK), Czech Republic, particularly focusing on comparison of general subjects to English for specific purposes (ESP). Therefore, following questions were set to be researched: (1) What types of mobile devices do students possess?, (2) What purposes do students use mobile devices? and (3) What is students´ feedback after mobile devices implementation in ESP and other subjects is? The case study was exploited to describe the state in mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) at FIM and students´ feedback was collected by the questionnaire on this approach to teaching/learning. The results show Czech students are sufficiently equipped by mobile devices so that these can be implemented in the process of teaching/learning of all subjects, including ESP.

Developing ESP Study Materials for Students at a Non-philological Faculty

Nowadays, thanks to internationalization and globalization, university students have an opportunity to study abroad. This is also true for engineering students of the Faculty of Informatics and Management (FIM) of the University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. In order to help them succeed in their foreign studies, teachers of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) try to meet their language needs. Although there exist a number of different ESP textbooks, most of these textbooks, however, due to the complexity of topics and grammar structures, cannot meet specific needs of these students. Therefore the purpose of this article is to discuss some of the issues of ESP materials development. These include methodological principles and approaches to the ESP materials development and ESP materials production.

Evaluating Writing in English as a Second Language

The aim of this paper is to discuss a few approaches to the evaluation of writing, their advantages and disadvantages in detail and accompanied them with practical examples based on teacher's experience in running a Course of Academic Writing at the Faculty of Informatics and Management (FIM) of the University of Hradec Kralove (UHK), Czech Republic. Firstly, the evaluation methods will be described and their benefits and drawbacks contrasted. Secondly, evaluation scales for grading students’ assignments will be outlined. Finally, the paper will provide a practical example of evaluating writing in the Course of Academic Writing at FIM UHK.