Abstract:

The Slovak Republic has implied the concepts of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) in their language curricula design. Despite the fact that students studying at secondary technical or vocational schools are expected to complete English at level B1, English teachers tend to encourage them to be engaged in learning the language for their real-life purposes in order to be able to communicate effectively in their future jobs.

The aim of our article is to introduce communicative activities and tasks that have been prepared with the intent to increase students’ abilities to use professional language fluently and adequately. The tasks have been designed carefully, taking into account students’ age, interests and their familiarity with the topics related to their future careers.

The experiment is based on a comparison of teaching approaches: one concerning communicative approaches (an experimental group) and one related to more traditional (conventional) approaches (a control group). More conventional approaches reflect a common practice in the Slovak educational system, in which rote learning prevails over discovery learning. Therefore, students’ achievements are unpredictable and this experiment is challenging for both students and their teachers.

Our article will present the examples of communicative tasks, focusing on the aspects such as real life, authenticity, functional language, etc., and their impact on learners’ achievements in a clearly illustrative as well as explanatory ways. The idea behind the experiment is to find out whether conventionally-taught students can benefit from discovery learning and to what extent.

Keywords:

English for Specific Purposes, secondary education, communicative activities.